lllfiliiffi 
ill  1      I 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://archive.org/details/sketchesoftudorhOOmaho 


(/M^o  l/fca^y ■SsttJtC* 


c,  0.  W- 


J-//32 


Sketches 


OF 


TUDOR  HALL 


AND  THE 


BOOTH  FAMILY 


BY 
ELLA  V.  MAHONEY 


TUDOR  HALL 
Bel  Air,  Md. 

MAY,    1925 


Copyright   1925 

BY 

ELLA  V.   MAHONEY 

Reprint,    1925 
Second   Edition,   1928 
Third    Edition,   1931 


Press   of 

Eranklin   Printing-  Co. 

Baltimore,   Md. 


\o3 
3  1 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Tudor  Hall  -        - 11 

The  Cherry  Tree         - 18 

Junius  Brutus  Booth  ------  21 

Edwin  Booth  -------  28 

John  Wilkes  Booth       ------  33 

The  Enid  Myth -        -  48 

The  Identification  of  John  Wilkes  Booth        -  52 

The  Search  for  Booth  at  Tudor  Hall  After 

the  Assassination  of  Lincoln  56 

Their  Burial   Place      ------        59 

ILLUSTRATIONS 

Tudor   Hall  -  Frontispiece 

The  Lake      -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -15 

Junius  Brutus  Booth  -        -        -        -        -    20 

Edwin  Booth -    28 

John  Wilkes  Booth 34 

(From  original  photograph) 


To  wake  the  soul  by  tender  strokes  of  art. 
To  raise  the  genius  and  to  mend  the  heart, 
To  make  mankind  in  conscious  virtue  bold, 
Live  o'er  each  scene,  and  be  what  they  behold  ; 
For  this  the  tragic  muse  first  trod  the  stage. 
Commanding  tears  to  stream  through  every  age. 

— Pope 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

I  was  encouraged  to  prepare  this  little  volume,  for  which  I 
claim  no  literary  merit  so  far  as  my  part  in  it  is  concerned,  at 
the  request  and  for  the  information  of  many  visitors  from  all 
parts  of  the  country  to  Tudor  Hall,  the  home  of  the  Booths, 
best  known  as  the  birthplace  of  Edwin  Booth. 

I  have  tried,  so  far  as  possible,  to  recount  such  facts  as  will 
answer  all  the  questions  I  am  asked. 

Of  late  the  uppermost  question  in  the  public  mind  seems  to 
be  that  oft  revived  subject  as  to  the  fate  of  John  Wilkes  Booth. 
I  hope  the  evidence  and  proofs  I  am  able  to  give  on  that  subject 
may  prove  convincing  to  my  readers. 

I  have  drawn  my  information  from  many  sources.  I  am 
greatly  indebted  to  William  Winter,  whose  "Life  And  Art  of 
Edwin  Booth,"  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  tributes  to  the  life 
and  character  of  a  friend,  I  have  ever  read. 

I  am  deeply  grateful  to  Mrs.  Thomas  Baily  Aldrich  for  the 
privilege  of  quoting  passages  from  her  charming  book,  "Crowd- 
ing Memories,"  published  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  Company. 
(The  Aldrich's  were  intimate  friends  of  Edwin  Booth  and  his 
family  from  the  time  of  their  meeting  him  and  his  young  wife 
until  his  death.) 

To  Clara  Morris  (Mrs.  Frederick  C.  Harriott),  who  after 
her  retirement  from  the  stage  wrote  most  interestingly  of  her 
dramatic  experiences  in  "Life  on  the  Stage,"  Doubleday,  Page 
&  Company.  I  also  owe  thanks  to  Thomas  A.  Jones,  whose  lit- 
tle book  I  found  very  helpful,  and  especially  to  Asia  Booth 
Clark,  whose  "Life  of  Junius  Booth,"  in  which  she  tells  of 
their  early  life  on  the  farm  is  particularly  interesting.  To  one 
wishing  to  learn  more  of  the  life  and  character  of  Edwin 
Booth,  the  book  prepared  by  his  daughter,  "Edwin  Booth,  Recol- 
lections by  His  Daughter  and  Letters  to  Her  and  Her  Friends," 
The  Century  Company,  New  York,  will  prove  most  inter- 
esting. And  for  the  privilege  granted  me  by  courtesy  of  Har- 
per &  Brothers  of  copying  from  an  article,  "Shattering  the 
Myth  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,"  by  William  G.  Shepherd,  and 
published  in  Harper's  Magazine  for  November,  1924. 

Ella  V.  Mahoney. 


Tudor   Hall 


IT  is  a  little  more  than  a  hundred  years  since  the  Booths 
came  to  Maryland.  When  I  was  a  young  girl,  I  sometimes 
visited  a  dear  old  lady  who  was  an  intimate  friend  of  the 
family,  from  the  time  of  their  arrival,  who  told  me  many 
things  about  their  lives  here.  I  made  a  pilgrimage  lately  to  their 
burial  place  in  Greenmount  Cemetery,  Baltimore,  a  beautiful 
spring  morning;  warm  bright  sunshine,  birds  singing — a  peace- 
ful contrast  to  the  life  of  the  one  whose  invisible  grave  I  had 
come  to  visit.  For  though  no  stone  marks  his  grave,  though  I 
could  find  neither  mound  nor  depression  in  the  velvety  turf  to 
mark  the  place  of  his  burial,  the  body  of  John  Wilkes  Booth 
as  surely  rests  there  as  do  those  of  his  parents,  brothers  and 
sisters. 

Living  as  I  have  for  these  many  years  in  the  home  of  the 
Booths,  bought  by  my  husband  in  1878,  directly  from  Mary 
Ann  Booth,  wife  of  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  and  mother  of  Edwin 
Booth  (her  signature  to  the  deed),  with  the  many  visitors  to 
the  place,  on  account  of  its  associations,  and  being  the  daughter 
of  one  who  with  his  brothers  had  been  companions  of  John 
Wilkes  Booth  when  he  was  a  gay,  genial,  happy-hearted  youth 
with  the  promise  of  a  bright  and  happy  future,  I  have  learned 
many  interesting  things  concerning  the  family. 

Perhaps  it  would  be  as  well  to  begin  with  the  history  of  the 
place  itself. 

Junius  Brutus  Booth  came  with  his  young  wife  to  seek  a 
home  in  the  country,  quiet  and  retired,  where  he  might  find  rest 
from  his  arduous  work,  and  perhaps  refuge  from  the  temptation 
which  all  his  life  beset  him. 

He  brought  with  him  a  little  piebald  horse,  which  must 
have  been  a  good  traveler  and  had  great  endurance,  as  he  rode 
it  back  and  forth  to  Baltimore,  sometimes  when  he  was  in  a 
"fine  frenzy,"  there  being  no  railroad,  or  even  stage-coach  from 
here  to  the  city.  How  he  found  this  place,  so  retired  and 
uncultivated,  I  do  not  know,  but  he  came,  and  rented  a  little 
unused  house  on  adjoining  property.    Mrs.  Rogers,  the  old  lady 


12  TUDOR    HALL 


to  whom  I  have  referred,  used  to  tell  me  how  he  came  with 
his  wife  and  the  little  horse  " Peacock,"  and  rented  the  small 
log  house  which  stood  in  their  field  not  far  from  this  property. 
There  they  lived  until  he  bought  this  place  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  acres,  part  of  a  large  tract  of  land  called  "Butterworth's 
Addition."  There  was  no  house,  or  buildings  of  any  kind  on 
the  land. 

The  little  house  in  which  they  were  living  had  been  occu- 
pied by  the  Rogers',  who  some  years  before,  having  rented  the 
farm  and  gone  to  live  in  town,  becoming  discontented  and  the 
lease  not  having  expired,  built  this  for  a  temporary  home  until 
they  could  regain  possession  of  their  house.  The  house  was 
strongly  built,  and  Mr.  Booth  bought  and  moved  it.  It  caused 
quite  an  excitement  in  the  neighborhood,  people  coming  to  wit- 
ness the  novel  sight  of  a  house  being  rolled  across  the  fields, 
and  many  lent  a  helping  hand. 

Mr.  Booth  chose  a  location  for  his  home  near  a  fine  spring. 
In  front  of  the  house  stood  a  large  cherry  tree,  and  at  the  back 
a  sycamore,  which  has  grown  to  immense  size,  being  now 
eighteen  feet  in  circumference.  In  that  house  they  lived  until 
later  they  built  this  substantial  brick  house,  after  a  design 
Mr.  Booth  brought  from  England — Elizabethan  style,  with 
diamond  paned  casement  windows.  He  named  the  place  "Tudor 
Hall."  Mr.  Booth  was  an  Englishman,  and  never  became  a 
naturalized  citizen. 

I  find  that  among  those  who  helped  to  build  this  house  was  a 
young  carpenter,  Spangler  by  name,  who  came  from  York 
County,  Pennsylvania,  and  was  working  about  theatres  in 
Baltimore  when  Mr.  Booth  engaged  him  to  come  here.  So  he 
became  acquainted  with  John  Wilkes  as  a  boy,  and  afterward 
met  him  about  theatres  in  Baltimore  and  Washington. 

Through  that  winter  of  1865  he  was  working  about  Ford's 
Theatre  in  Washington  and  saw  Booth  often.  A  boy  who 
assisted  him,  also  cared  for  Booth's  horses,  stabled  back  of  the 
theatre.  Spangler  saw  that  they  were  cared  for  and  sold  a 
team  for  Booth. 

He  was  called  out  of  the  theatre  that  night  to  hold  Booth's 
horse,  but  called  the  boy  and  returned  to  his  occupation  at  the 
back  of  the  stage.     He  with  Dr.  Mudd,  Arnold  and  O'Laugh- 


TUDOR  HALL  U 


Ian  was  sentenced  to  imprisonment  at  Fort  Jefferson,  situated 
on  a  desolate  island — Dry  Tortugas — off  the  coast  of  Florida. 
O'Laughlin  died  of  yellow  fever  during  his  imprisonment. 
Spangler  became  greatly  attached  to  Dr.  Mudd,  and  shortly 
after  the  end  of  their  confinement  of  nearly  four  years,  made 
his  appearance  at  the  home  of  Dr.  Mudd  and  remained  for  the 
rest  of  his  life,  helping  about  the  place. 

The  old  house  still  stood  on  the  front  lawn  when  I  first 
knew  the  place.  I  remember  it  well.  The  main  part  of  the 
house — the  part  that  was  moved — had  had  added  at  the  east 
end  a  kitchen  built  of  logs,  a  big  stone  chimney  on  the  outside, 
and  a  wide  fireplace  within.  At  the  west  end  also  a  log  addi- 
tion, which  had  never  been  finished,  no  floors  laid  above  or 
below.  As  a  child  I  used  to  play  in  that  old  house,  and  walk  on 
some  boards  laid  on  the  sleepers  of  the  upper  story. 

The  main  part  of  the  house  consisted  of  one  large  room, 
with  hall  running  through  at  one  end.  A  door  opened  out  at 
either  end,  and  at  one  side  a  well  preserved  stairway  and  rail- 
ing; a  landing  well  up;  a  large  closet  under  the  stairway,  and 
also  a  closet  in  the  big  room  above,  in  which  room  as  well  as 
in  the  room  below,  was  a  fireplace,  with  shelves  in  the  wall  on 
either  side.  I  remember  these  closets  so  well,  on  account  of 
having  seen  a  cross  goose  sitting  in  the  room  below,  and  another 
walk  deliberately  past  us  when  we  were  playing  in  the  room 
above,  and  go  to  her  nest  in  the  closet  there. 

The  old  house  was  so  unattractive,  standing  as  it  did  in 
front  of  this  house,  and  in  such  a  state  of  decay,  that  my  hus- 
band had  it  removed  when  he  began  improvements  about  the 
place,  as  I  suppose  the  Booths  had  intended  doing.  There  were 
the  remains  of  another  building  near  the  back  of  the  house,  a 
room  perhaps  for  the  servants.  There  was  a  log  springhouse 
near  the  spring,  through  which  the  overflow  from  the  spring 
ran;  also  the  remains  ot  an  old  cider  press. 

When  the  place  came  into  our  possession  there  were  many 
repairs  needed  about  this  house,  the  wind  had  blown  the  tin 
roof  from  the  porch,  but  the  heavy  block  tin  roofing  then  on  it 
was  better  than  any  new  tin  procurable,  and  remains  after  all 
these  years,  impervious  to  storms. 

Sometime  during  the  war  the  Booths  had  rented  the  farm 


14  TUDOR   HALL 


to  a  family  from  the  City,  leaving  their  furniture  and  many 
things  packed  away  in  the  old  house.  They  still  had  their  City 
home  on  Exeter  Street,  and  the  family  only  visited  their  country 
home  occasionally,  with  the  exception  of  John  Wilkes,  who  had 
a  strong  affection  for  his  boyhood  home  and  friends.  His  name 
is  still  legible  where  he  carved  it,  with  the  date,  1852,  on  a 
beech  tree  near  the  spring.  When  we  came  to  dig  and  dam 
up  a  pond  in  a  marshy  place,  near  the  lane,  through  which  ran 
i  stream  and  in  which  was  also  a  spring  of  excellent  water,  we 
found  long  logs,  remains  of  a  dam  which  we  found  on  inquiry 
had  been  the  wall  of  a  pond  Mr.  Booth  had  built  in  the  same 
place  for  his  children.  On  the  rising  ground  of  a  hillside,  near 
this  place,  in  the  same  field,  had  been  the  family  burying 
ground. 

Below  the  house,  in  the  east  side  of  a  steep  bank  near  the 
barn,  were  the  remains  of  what  had  been  a  little  cave  or  dug- 
out— nothing  mysterious  or  hidden  about  it — but  it  had  its  part 
in  the  subsequent  history  of  the  place.  As  soon  as  Booth  got 
settled  on  the  farm,  needing  a  hand  for  gardening,  caring  for 
the  cows,  and  work  in  general  about  the  place,  he  went  to 
Mr.  Bond,  near  Bel  Air,  who  owned  a  number  of  slaves,  and 
hired  from  him  a  young  colored  man  named  Joe,  with  whom 
he  was  so  well  pleased  that  he  wished  to  have  him  permanently. 
Mr.  Bond,  a  kind  master,  did  not  sell  his  slaves,  but  Mr.  Booth, 
finding  that  Joe  liked  his  new  home  and  would  be  willing  to 
remain  with  him,  took  Joe  (an  uncle  of  mine  accompanying 
them)  and  went  to  Mr.  Bond  with  an  offer  to  buy  the  young 
man.  Mr.  Bond  called  Joe  to  him,  and  being  assured  by  him  of 
his  willingness  to  belong  to  Mr.  Booth,  the  arrangement  was 
made  and  Mr.  Booth  paid,  I  am  not  sure,  but  I  think  eight  hun- 
dred dollars  for  Joe.  My  uncle  has  told  me  how  after  the 
transaction  was  concluded,  Mr.  Booth,  who  surely  could  not 
have  approved  of  slavery,  turned  to  his  new  possession  and  said, 
"And  now  Joe,  if  you  are  a  faithful  servant  to  me,  in  five  years 
I  will  set  you  free." 

Joe,  whether  or  not  given  his  freedom,  never  left  his  master, 
but  remained  a  faithful  servant  and  friend  to  the  family  until 
all  finally  left  the  farm.  He  married  a  fine  young  colored 
woman  belonging  to  the  Rogers  family.    She  remained  with  her 


16  TUDOR   HALL 


master,  as  she  has  told  me,  until  years  later  when  there  was  a 
family  of  four  or  five  children.  Joe,  who  with  a  liberal  master 
had  been  saving  money,  bought  her  for  five  hundred  dollars. 
But  she  had  to  come  to  him  without  her  children,  and  though 
not  far  from  them,  her  freedom  did  not  bring  her  much  happi- 
ness without  the  little  ones  to  whom  she  was  a  devoted  mother, 
being  about  her.  Especially  was  it  most  painful  to  be  separated 
from  her  baby.  But  she  worked  diligently,  not  only  for  the 
Booths  but  day's  work  for  others  in  the  neighborhood,  and  she 
and  Joe  saved  their  money  until  they  had  a  hundred  and  ten 
dollars  with  which  they  bought  their  baby.  Later,  they  bought 
a  house  with  a  few  acres  of  land  about  a  mile  from  the  Booth 
place.  Here  they  lived  long  enough  to  have  all  their  children 
at  home  with  them  after  the  slaves  were  freed.  Joe  died  before 
I  was  old  enough  to  remember  ever  having  seen  him,  but  Ann 
lived  to  quite  an  old  age,  and  worked  hard  to  improve  her  little 
farm  and  care  for  her  family.  She  washed  and  did  other  work 
in  my  father's  family,  and  after  I  came  here  to  live,  did  my 
washing  as  long  as  she  was  able  to  work.  I  remember  well  her 
plump  comfortable  figure,  when  after  the  washing  was  done, 
the  kitchen  scrubbed  and  the  basket  of  freshly  dried  clothes 
brought  in,  Ann  would  sit  down  to  rest  for  an  hour.  It  was 
then  she  would  tell  me  many  things  of  her  life  as  a  slave,  and 
of  her  later  life  here  with  the  Booths.  She  showed  me  one  day 
the  sill  along  the  back  basement  wall  in  the  stable  of  the  old 
barn  where  she  and  Joe  kept  the  money  hidden  while  they  were 
saving  to  buy  their  baby.  I  think  this  child  is  now  the  elderly 
man  who  having  inherited  with  his  father's  name  that  spirit 
now  so  rare — allegiance  to  a  good  master — has  since  a  boy  been 
in  the  employ  of  one  family.  I  have  in  my  possession  a  blue 
bordered  platter  that  belonged  to  the  Booths,  but  afterwards 
to  Ann,  which  she  told  me  she  had  often  carried  to  the  dining 
room  and  set  before  Mr.  Booth. 

There  were  many  old  apple  trees  about  the  grounds.  The 
last  one  of  them,  on  which  my  children  had  a  swing,  blew  down 
during  a  heavy  wind  storm  some  years  ago. 

For  many  years  there  was  an  immense  bullfrog  that  lived 
in  the  spring.  His  roar  was  indeed  like  that  of  a  bull,  and  on 
quiet   evenings   could    be   heard   by   neighbors   a   mile   distant. 


TUDOR  HALL  17 


We  used  to  say  we  believed  he  was  in  the  spring  when  the 
Booths  lived  here,  so  what  was  our  surprise  when  reading  Asia 
Booth  Clark's  life  of  her  father,  in  which  she  tells  of  their  life 
on  the  farm,  to  find  mention  of  the  immense  bullfrog  at  the 
spring,  which  they  as  children  "used  to  imagine  had  croaked 
to  the  first  invaders  of  his  solitude." 


The  Cherry  Tree 

The  immense  cherry  tree  of  which  Mrs.  Clark  writes  with 
such  fond  remembrance,  was  blown  down  during  a  storm  that 
seemed  to  come  suddenly  out  of  a  clear  sky  one  summer  Sun- 
day afternoon.  I  will  never  forget  the  day.  The  morning  had 
been  very  warm,  and  in  the  afternoon  I  took  a  book  and  laid 
down  on  the  grass  under  an  old  locust  tree  near  the  corner  of 
the  porch.  I  did  not  read,  but  lay  looking  up  through  the 
foliage  at  the  fleecy  clouds  floating  across  the  blue  overhead, 
and  the  swallows  darting  about,  and  down  into  the  chimney, 
when  suddenly  the  sky  darkened,  the  branches  of  the  trees  began 
to  sway  in  the  wind,  and  I  hurried  upstairs  to  close  the  win- 
dows. While  I  was  there,  in  only  a  few  minutes,  I  heard  such 
a  roaring  and  crashing  that  I  ran  downstairs,  terror-stricken, 
to  find  the  tree  under  which  I  had  been  lying  not  five  minutes 
before,  another  old  locust  a  short  distance  away,  and  two  great 
divisions  of  the  old  cherry  tree  lying,  their  tops  intertwined, 
across  the  ground  in  front  of  the  house,  so  close  that  the  trunk 
of  the  tree  under  which  I  had  been,  barely  missed  carrying  the 
porch  roof  with  it. 

On  a  panel  sawed  from  one  of  the  branches  of  the  cherry 
tree  I  painted  cherries  with  two  Baltimore  orioles  alighting 
among  the  foliage.  It  was  sent  to  Edwin  Booth,  who  had  sent 
us  a  check  for  five  hundred  dollars  toward  establishing  a  library 
in  Bel  Air,  and  a  number  of  his  photographs  (of  which  the  one 
printed  here  is  a  copy).  I  had  not  then  read  his  sister's  descrip- 
tion of  the  tree  where,  to  quote  her  again,  "every  year  the 
orioles  and  mocking  birds  paid  their  welcome  visits,  and  his  tall 
sons  swung  themselves  up  among  its  great  boughs  to  read  or 
doze  away  many  a  sultry  afternoon ;  merry  groups  gossiped 
under  its  shelter;  little  ones  danced  there;  the  aged  mother  in 
her  widowhood  remembered  happier  days  in  its  shadows;"  but 
I  had  heard  their  boyhood  friends  tell  how  from  the  crotch 
of  the  tree,  which  separated  like  five  great  fingers  from  a  hand, 
the  Booth  boys  used  to  declaim  passages  from  Shakespeare. 


TUDOR   HALL  19 


Edwin  Booth's  appreciation  of  that  panel  of  the  cherry  tree 
was  therefore  greater  than  I  had  anticipated,  and  he  mentions 
in  one  of  his  letters  to  his  daughter  the  receipt  of  "a  panel  of 
wood  from  the  old  cherry  tree  in  whose  shade  I  was  born,  on 
which  the  wife  of  the  present  owner  of  the  farm  painted  a 
sprig  with  cherries  and  two  Baltimore  orioles  on  it." 

I  came  lately  across  the  letter  of  acknowledgment  he  wrote 
to  the  committee  who  had  the  undertaking  in  charge. 

"The  Players,  16  Gramercy  Park,  N.  Y., 

"Sept.  17,  '89. 

"Dear  Ladies: 

"The  precious  souvenir  of  my  birthplace  which  you  kindly 
sent  me  was  an  agreeable  surprise  on  my  return  to  the  city  yes- 
terday. I  thank  you  for  it  most  sincerely.  My  earliest  mem- 
ories are  associated  with  it.  The  selection  of  the  panel,  with 
its  appropriate  device,  was  a  happy  thought  of  the  artist — no 
other  token  of  appreciation  of  my  silght  service  could  have 
pleased  me  so  much.  It  shall  be  placed  beneath  the  portrait  of 
my  father  which  now  faces  me,  on  the  wall  above  my  desk,  as  a 
constant  reminder  of  my  happy  association  with  those  who 
cherish  his  memory. 

"I  am,  respectfully  yours, 

"Edwin  Booth." 

I  learned  long  after  his  death  that  the  panel  still  hung  with 
his  father's  picture  over  his  desk,  in  his  room  at  The  Players. 
The  room  is  still  preserved  as  he  left  it,  even  to  the  book  lying 
open,  at  the  page  where  he  was  reading  for  the  last  time. 


JUNIUS   BRUTUS   BOOTH 


Junius  Brutus  Booth 

I  am  often  painfully  surprised  in  talking  to  people  who 
come  to  see  the  birthplace  of  Edwin  Booth,  to  find  the  name  of 
Junius  Brutus  Booth  is  unknown  to  them,  as  though  for  the 
I  eople  of  this  generation  the  memory  of  his  name,  of  the  great 
impersonator  of  Richard  the  Third,  Sir  Giles  and  Iago  has 
passed  away,  totally  eclipsed  by  the  greater  or  rather  more 
recent  fame  of  his  son,  whose  versatility  in  portraying  such 
diverse  characters  makes  his  name,  we  think,  immortal.  Or, 
will  his  memory  fade  with  another  generation  as  has  the 
memory  of  Junius  Brutus  Booth  with  this? 

The  elder  Booth's  portrayal  of  Richard  the  Third  caused 
him  to  stand  without  a  rival  for  thirty  years  from  1819, 
when  he  appeared  on  the  English  stage,  a  rival  to  Kean 
(who  until  that  time  was  considered  without  a  peer),  until 
1852,  when  he  performed  for  the  last  time,  in  New  Orleans. 
Edwin  Booth's  great  talent  was  inherited,  and  from  his  boy- 
hood fostered,  through  his  association  with  his  eminently  tal- 
ented father,  who  was  "of  different  natures  marvelously  blent;" 
the  other  side  of  his  strange  makeup,  his  eccentricities,  fits  of 
aberration,  almost  madness,  his  mind  at  times  "by  frenzy  deso- 
lated," was  inherited  by  the  John  Wilkes,  and  accounts  in  great 
measure  for  the  crime  committed  under  a  wild  hallucination 
that  he  was  another  Brutus. 

Before  giving  a  sketch  of  the  life  of  Junius  Brutus  Booth, 
I  must  say  that  I  draw  my  knowledge  of  his  early  life,  before 
he  came  to  the  farm,  from  the  short  story  of  his  life  by  his 
daughter,  Mrs.  Clark,  to  which  I  have  already  referred.  This 
much  prized  book  (now  difficult,  I  believe,  to  obtain)  came  into 
my  possession  in  this  wise:  One  cold,  rainy  evening  in  March, 
about  fifteen  years  ago,  as  my  husband  and  I  were  about  sitting 
down  to  supper,  there  came  a  rap  at  the  door,  and  when  I 
opened  it  there  entered  a  young  man,  who  introduced  himself 
as  a  strolling  player,  come  to  visit  the  home  of  the  Booths. 
He  had  come  to  Bel  Air  on  the  train,  and  walked  down  the 
three  miles  from  the  station,  in  the  mud  and  rain.    We  spent 


22  TUDOR  HALL 

a  most  delightful  evening  together,  and  when  he  was  leaving 
the  next  morning  he  promised  to  send  me  this  book,  which  came 
a  few  days  later.    On  the  fly  leaf  is  written: 

"To  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mahoney, 

from  the  little  stroller  who  can  never  forget  the  happy 
evening  spent  at  "Tudor  Hall,"  the  grand  old  home  of 
Junius  Brutus  Booth. 

Joe     Loraine. 
"March  6,  igog,  N.  Y.  City." 

uThe  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

— Longfellow. 

He  wrote  a  charming  letter  to  us  later.  Though  we  have 
never  heard  of  him  since,  this  highly  prized  little  book  keeps 
his  memory  green. 

On  the  title  page  of  Mrs.  Clark's  book  is  this  apt  quotation : 

"And  Booths  ivere  created  for  the  entertainment  of 
the  people,  and  were  much  resorted  to." 

— (Views  of  London.) 

The  first  passages  read :  "Junius  Brutus  Booth  was  born 
on  the  first  day  of  May,  1796,  in  the  parish  of  Pancras,  London. 
His  grandmother,  Elizabeth  Wilkes,  was  a  relative  of  John 
Wilkes,  and  through  his  mother  he  inherited  the  blood  of  the 
Llewyellyns.  The  Booths  and  Wilkes  were  honorably  known 
in  their  time.  The  ancient  churchyard  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem 
still  contains  the  gravestones  of  their  descendants."  Richard 
Booth,  the  father  of  Junius  Brutus,  studied  law,  but  becoming 
infatuated  with  Republicanism,  left  home  with  a  cousin  to 
embark  for  America  (then  at  war  with  England).  Booth  was 
taken  prisoner,  and  sent  back  to  England,  where  he  devoted 
himself  to  his  profession.  He  always  kept  a  picture  of  Wash- 
ington in  his  drawing  room.  At  the  age  of  twenty  he  addressed 
a  letter  to  "the  great  Wilkes,"  which  is  now  among  the  original 
collection  of  the  Wilkes  papers  in  the  British  Museum.  "His 
cousin    Brevitt   escaped   to   America,   fought   against   England, 


TUDOR  HALL  23 


was  made  a  captain,  and  subsequently  married  a  Quakeress  of 
Baltimore." 

"Junius  Brutus,  the  son  of  Richard  Booth,  received  a 
classical  education.  He  essayed  one  art  after  another — painting, 
poetry,  sculpture.  His  ever  restless  mind  found  its  true  element 
in  the  art  of  the  actor." 

So  she  tells  us  he  began  the  life  of  a  strolling  player  and  at 
the  age  of  nineteen  had  already  attracted  favorable  notice,  and 
was  recommended  to  play  Richard  the  Third,  on  account  of  the 
impression  he  had  already  made  in  that  character.  At  the  age 
of  twenty-one  he  was  winning  equal  honors  with  Edmond 
Kean.  In  January,  1821,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  "he  mar- 
ried Mary  Ann  Holmes,  at  the  residence  of  the  Hon.  Mrs. 
Chambers,  who  had  always  manifested  a  great  interest  in  Mr. 
Booth's  career,  and  who  presented  to  his  wife  on  her  wedding 
day  those  well-known  jewels  which  afterwards  decorated  his 
Richard's  crown." 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Booth  made  a  brief  visit  to  the  Continent, 
later  to  the  West  Indies,  and  sailed  from  Deal,  "at  which  place 
they  bought  a  piebald  pony  named  Peacock,  to  which  he  became 
much  attached,  and  in  after  years  was  closely  identified  with 
him  in  his  occupation  as  a  farmer." 

"In  April  he  took  passage  for  himself,  wife  and  pony  in  the 
schooner  'Two  Brothers,'  for  America."  They  had  a  tedious 
journey  of  forty-four  days,  and  landed  at  Norfolk  on  the  30th 
of  June,  1821. 

His  first  engagement  after  landing  "unheralded  and  un- 
known," was  at  Richmond.  People  doubted  if  he  were  really 
the  great  young  actor  Booth,  of  whom  they  had  been  hearing, 
but  he  soon  took  his  audience  by  storm,  and  he  was  everywhere 
enthusiastically  received.  "In  the  summer  of  1822,  while  the 
yellow  fever  was  raging  in  Baltimore,  Mr.  Booth  purchased  a 
farm  twenty-five  miles  from  the  City  and  lying  in  Harford 
County,  Maryland.  This  place  became  his  constant  resort 
when  free  from  the  excitement  of  his  profession,  and  was  the 
birthplace  of  his  children.  This  uncultivated  possession  lay 
equally  distant  from  three  small  villages — Bel  Air,  the  County 
town,  Hickory,  and  Churchville."  William  Winter,  in 
"Shadows  of  the  Stage,"  speaking  of  the  Elder  Booth,  says: 


24  TUDOR  HALL 


''He  bought  a  farm  near  Belair,  Harford  County,  Maryland, 
In  a  wooded,  romantic  solitude,  far  from  the  abodes  of  men, 
and  that  hermitage  he  made  his  headquarters,  emerging  from 
time  lo  time,  to  dazzle  and  astonish  mankind  upon  the  stage, 
and  straightway  escaping  again  into  his  retreat." 

During  his  first  year  at  the  farm  his  father,  Richard  Booth, 
came  to  this  country  and  made  his  home  with  his  son. 

I  speak  of  them  again  from  knowledge  gained  from  those 
who  knew  them  here  in  their  adopted  home. 

Mr.  Booth,  a  devoted  husband  and  father,  under  the  stress 
of  any  tiouble  or  excitement  was  subject  to  fits  of  melancholy, 
periods  when  his  mind  became  unbalanced,  followed  by  days 
of  serious  illness.  The  neighbors  considered  these  attacks  to  be 
the  result  of  excessive  drinking,  but  this  was  not  altogether  the 
case.  Following  the  death  of  a  little  boy  and  a  few  days  later 
the  little  girl  (Mary  Ann,  I  think),  his  mind  became  seriously 
unsettled,  and  a  long  illness  followed.  These  two  little  children 
were  buried  on  the  farm,  the  first  I  think  in  the  little  grave- 
yard. I  used  to  hear  when  a  child  of  how  Booth,  receiving  the 
news  of  the  second  child's  illness,  disregarded  his  engagement 
and  rode  home  on  Peacock,  in  his  frenzy  belaboring  the  little 
horse  with  his  hiked  sword ;  but  only  on  his  ?Yrival  to  find  the 
child  dead.  For  days  after,  his  mind  was  unsettled  and  a 
serious  illness  followed. 

Mr.  Booth  was  fond  of  animals,  and  spared  every  form  of 
life  on  the  farm.  Mrs.  Clark,  speaking  of  this  characteristic  of 
her  father,  quotes  from  a  letter  written  by  him  when  away 
from  his  family,  in  regard  to  one  of  his  boys  gunning:  "The 
robber  of  life  can  never  give  back  what  he  has  wantonly  and 
sacriligiously  taken  from  beings  perhaps  innocent  and  equally 
capable  of  enjoying  pleasure  or  suffering  torture  as  himself. 
The  ideas  of  Pythagorus  I  have  adopted,  and  as  respects  our 
accountability  to  animals  hereafter  nothing  that  man  can  preach 
can  make  me  believe  to  the  contrary,  'Every  death  its  own 
avenger  breeds.'  " 

I  often  heard  it  related  of  him  that  coming  home  on  one 
occasion,  he  found  the  little  horse  Peacock,  now  quite  aged, 
dead.  He  sent  for  several  of  his  neighbors  (my  uncle  among 
them),    and   going   to   the   house    forced    Mrs.    Booth,    terror- 


TUDOR   HALL  25 


stricken,  to  sit  on  the  horse,  wrapped  in  a  sheet,  while  he  walk- 
ing around  with  a  gun  on  his  arm,  read  a  funeral  service.  Two 
of  the  neighbors  whom  Joe  had  hastened  to  bring,  arriving,  one 
attracted  his  attention,  while  the  other  going  quietly  up  behind, 
pinioned  his  arms,  rendering  him  harmless.  Instead  of  struggling 
or  growing  angry,  he  dropped  the  gun  and  remarked,  "Well, 
you've  got  me,  come  to  the  house  and  have  a  drink."  But  later 
in  the  day  he  disappeared,  and  the  next  day  was  quite  ill. 

These  and  many  other  things  show  how  at  many  times  the 
mind  of  that  great  genius  wavered  in  the  balance. 

In  1836,  Mr.  Booth  went  to  England,  taking  his  family 
with  him, 

The  following  is  so  touching  that  I  must  again  quote  from 
Mrs.  Clark.  He  settled  his  family  in  London,  and  while  filling 
an  engagement  in  Birmingham  he  received  news  of  the  death 
of  a  favorite  son,  Henry  Byron  Booth.  The  grave  of  this  son 
is  in  the  churchyard  at  Pentonville  (near  that  of  Grinaldi). 
On  the  stone  erected  by  Mr.  Booth  are  these  lines  taken  from 
Southey's  "Doctor": 

"Oh,    even    in    spite   of   Death,    yet   still    my   choice, 
Oft  with  the  inward,  all-beholding  eye, 
I  think   I   see  thee,   and   I  hear  thy  voice." 

And  he  writes  to  his  father:  "Our  dear  little  Henry  is  dead! 
so  proud  as  I  was  of  him  above  all  the  others." 

In  the  spring  of  1852,  he  went  to  California,  accompanied 
by  Edwin  and  John  Wilkes.  Edwin  had  always  accompanied 
him,  and  had  had  some  nerve  racking  experiences,  the  frail  boy 
guarding  and  trying  to  control  his  father  during  those  attacks 
when  he  was  not  safe  without  a  guardian.  But  he  decided  to 
come  home  from  California  alone,  and  leave  his  sons  to  try 
their  fortunes  there. 

His  last  appearance  was  in  New  Orleans,  on  his  way  home, 
and  he  was  taken  sick  and  died  on  his  way  up  the  Mississippi, 
before  he  reached  Cincinnati.  On  reaching  that  City,  the 
Masonic  fraternity  had  his  body  embalmed  in  a  metallic  coffin, 
and  Mrs.  Booth  arriving,  expecting  to  find  her  husband  very 
ill  (having  missed  the  second  telegram),  returned  bringing  the 
body  with  her.  Instead  of  being  brought  to  the  farm  for  burial, 
he  was  buried  in  Old  Baltimore  Cemetery. 


26  TUDOR  HALL 


I  have  often  heard  old  theatregoers  describe  his  wonderful 
acting,  and  tell  of  how  on  one  occasion  in  a  scene  of  Richard 
the  Third  he  forced  his  opponent  off  the  stage  and  chased  him 
down  the  aisle,  when  in  a  frenzy  he  imagined  himself  indeed 
Richard. 

In  his  family  he  was  a  kind  and  devoted  husband  and 
father,  but  in  his  dark  and  distraught  moods  the  great  forest 
and  streams  adjoining  the  back  of  the  farm  were  his  favorite 
places  to  wander  alone.  William  Winter  describes  him:  "a 
wild,  and  strange  being,  as  mysterious  and  as  grand  as  'The 
Ancient  Mariner,'  which  of  all  poems  he  loved  best,  and  which 
is  an  apt  emblem  of  his  haunted  spirit." 

The  only  description  of  his  personal  appearance  I  have  ever 
found  is  also  from  "Shadows  of  the  Stage,"  by  Winter:  "The 
Elder  Booth  was  a  short,  spare,  muscular  man,  with  a  splendid 
chest,  a  symmetrical  Greek  head,  a  pale  countenance,  a  voice 
of  wonderful  compass  and  thrilling  power,  dark  hair  and  blue 
eye."     He  died  in  the  fifty-sixth  year  of  his  age. 

He  was  acknowledged  by  all  old  theatre-goers  to  be  the 
greatest  Richard,  Sir  Giles,  and  Iago  who  ever  acted  on  the 
American  stage. 


Edwin  Booth 


Edwin  Booth,  the  seventh  child  of  his  parents,  was  born 
here,  on  that  wonderful  night  of  which  I  have  heard  old  Ann 
and  many  others  tell,  "when  showers  of  stars  fell  from  the 
sky,"  the  13th  of  November,  1833.  And  strange  to  say,  on  the 
night  of  his  death,  all  the  electric  lights  in  his  room  and  in  the 
street  below  suddenly  went  out.  And  so  he  went  "from  light 
to  dark,  from  dark  to  light." 

Most  of  his  time  as  a  youth  was  spent  in  attendance  on  his 
father,  giving  him  no  chance  for  a  classical  education,  the 
lack  of  which  he  always  deplored.  Winter  mentions  that  he 
had  for  an  instructor  for  a  time  "a  Mr.  Kerney,  who  com- 
piled his  own  text  books."  I  have  learned  from  a  relative  of 
Mr.  Kerney's  that  he  prepared  a  compendium  of  history,  an 
arithmetic  and  other  text  books  for  his  school,  which  have  since 
been  widely  used.  I  have  met  his  son  and  grandson,  and  a 
short  time  ago  his  great  grandson  proudly  announced  at  the 
house  where  I  was  visiting  that  they  were  using  his  great  grand- 
father's arithmetic  in  his  school. 

Quoting  from  Mrs.  Clark  once  more  "Edwin  Booth  voted 
but  once  in  his  life,  and  that  was  for  Lincoln  in  1864.  A  short 
time  after,  on  the  night  of  November  25th,  the  three  brothers 
appeared  in  the  play  of  "Julius  Caesar,"  Junius  Brutus  as 
Cassius,  Edwin  as  Brutus,  and  John  Wilkes  as  Marc  Antony. 
The  theatre  was  crowded  to  suffocation.  The  aged  mother  sat 
in  a  private  box.  The  three  brothers  received  and  merited  the 
applause  of  that  immense  audience,  for  they  acted  well,  and 
presented  a  picture  too  strikingly  historic  to  be  soon  forgotten. 
The  eldest,  powerfully  built  and  handsome  as  an  antique 
Roman,  Edwin,  with  his  magnetic  fire  and  graceful  dignity, 
and  John  Wilkes  in  the  perfection  of  youthful  beauty,  stood 
side  by  side,  again  and  again  before  the  curtain,  to  receive  the 
lavish  plaudits  of  the  audience,  mingled  with  waving  handker 
chiefs  and  every  mark  of  enthusiasm. 

The   more   one   studies    the   life   and   character   of    Edwin 


EDWIN    BOOTH 


TUDOR   HALL  29 


Booth,  the  more  one  learns  to  admire  the  man  as  well  as  the 
actor — to  understand  the  beauty  of  that  "calm,  benignant  face." 
William  Winter,  who  for  many  years  was  his  close  personal 
friend  gives  the  most  interesting  and  understanding  history 
of  his  life.  In  one  place  he  begins  thus:  "The  story  is  that 
of  a  dreamer,  who,  nevertheless,  threw  himself  into  the  strife 
of  action;  a  simple  gentleman  who  was  often  perplexed  and 
bewildered  among  the  thorns  and  dangers  of  this  world."  And 
no  one  better  describes  what  the  trials  and  adversities  of  his 
life  were  than  that  same  author,  when  he  writes:  "Edwin 
Booth  has  been  tried  by  some  of  the  most  terrible  afflictions 
that  ever  tested  the  fortitude  of  a  human  soul.  Over  his  youth 
plainly  visible,  impended  the  lowering  cloud  of  insanity.  While 
he  Was  yet  a  boy,  and  when  literally  struggling  for  life  in  the 
semi-barbarous  wilds  of  California  he  lost  his  beloved  father, 
under  circumstances  of  peculiar  misery.  In  early  manhood  he 
laid  in  the  grave  the  woman  of  his  first  love — the  wife  who  had 
died  in  absence  from  him,  herself  scarcely  past  the  threshhold 
of  youth,  lovely  as  an  angel,  and  to  all  who  knew  her  precious 
beyond  description.  A  little  later  his  heart  was  well-nigh 
broken  and  his  life  was  well-nigh  blasted  by  the  crime  of  a 
lunatic  brother  that  seemed  for  a  moment  to  darken  the  hope 
of  the  world.  Recovering  from  that  blow  he  threw  all  his 
resources  and  powers  into  the  establishment  of  the  greatest 
theatre  in  the  Metropolis  of  America  and  saw  his  fortune  of 
more  than  a  million  dollars  together  with  the  toil  of  some  of 
the  best  years  of  his  life,  frittered  away.  Under  all  trials  he 
has  borne  bravely  up,  and  kept-  the  even,  steadfast  tenor  of  his 
course;  strong,  patient,  gentle,  neither  elated  by  public  homage, 
nor  embittered  by  private  grief."  But  after  his  great  loss  with 
his  theatre  he  toured  the  country  and  brought  back  enough 
money  to  pay  all  his  debts,  and  then  began  an  undertaking  that 
may  be  called  the  crowning  success  of  his  life.  I  have  read 
somewhere  the  regretful  reflection  that  actors  can  leave  noth- 
ing substantial  behind  them,  except  a  memory.  Perhaps 
this  is  true,  except  as  their  high  purpose  has  helped  to  elevate 
the  stage  for  all  that  are  to  come  after;  but  besides  this,  Edwin 
Booth  realizing  in  his  own  case  the  often  homelessness  of  the 
actor  (for  once  in  writing  to  a  friend  he  deplores  the  lack  of 


30  TUDOR    HALL 


domestic  life)  he  built  and  furnished  that  beautiful  home  for 
actors,  "The  Players,"  where  he  spent  the  last  years  of  his  life, 
its  loved  and  honored  President,  and  where  he  died,  June 
7th,  1893. 

The  Players  Club  was  formally  opened  on  the  last  night  of 
the  year  1888.  Booth,  writing  to  his  daughter  the  next  day, 
suggests  that  there  be  a  "Ladye  Daye"  for  her,  and  so  it  came 
to  pass  that  Shakespeare's  birthday,  April  23,  from  that  first 
year  is  "Ladye  Daye,"  and  Booth  writes  to  one  of  his  friends, 
on  April  24,  '91  :  "Yesterday  was  our  third  annual  fete — 
'Layde  Daye,'  and  as  usual,  the  house  was  given  up  to  ladies 
and  flowers  and  ice  cream  and  all  the  other  sweets  that  this 
blessed  season  brings." 

There  is  at  The  Players  Club  a  fine  portrait  of  Edwin 
Booth  by  Sargent,  about  which  Thomas  Baily  Aldrich  wrote 
some  beautiful  lines,  ending  with — 

"That  sweet  majestic  face 
The  gentle  Prince  of  Players   wore." 

And  no  words  could  more  aptly  describe  the  face  of  Edwin 
Booth  as  he  seems  to  look  down  at  me  from  the  fine  portrait 
by  Cummings  which  hangs  in  this  home  of  his  childhood.  There 
is  also  a  fine  portrait  of  him  in  the  Court  House  in  Bel  Air. 

I  stood  by  his  grave  one  June  day  in  beautiful  Mount 
Auburn,  where  he  is  buried  beside  his  young  wife.  Their 
graves  are  in  Anemone  Path,  near  Spruce  Avenue.  T.  W. 
Parsons  wrote  the  epitaph  for  the  tablet  over  the  grave  of 
Mrs.  Booth — the  lines  all  beautiful.  I  copied  two  verses  ,as 
follows : 

The  handful  here,  that  once  was  Mary's  earth, 

Held  while  it  breathed  so  beautiful  a  soul 
That  when  she  died,  all   recognized  her  birth, 

And  had  their  sorrow  in  serene  control. 

"Not  here!    Not  here!"  to  every  mourner's  heart 

The  wintry  wind  seemed  whispering  round  her  bier; 

And  when  the  tomb  door  opened,  with  a  start, 
We  heard  it  echoed  from  within,  "Not  here!" 


TUDOR   HALL  31 


Edwin  Booth  chose  as  his  epitaph  these  lines  of  Hamlet: 

"Thou  hast  been 
As    one    in    suffering    all,    that    suffers    nothing. 
A  man  that  Fortune's  buffets  and  rewards 
Hast   ta'en    with    equal    thanks." 

(It  may  be  interesting  to  know  that  the  memorial  to  Edwin 
Booth  was  designed  by  Stanford  White,  the  famous  New  York 
architect.) 

He  must  have  schooled  himself  to  bear  all  things  in  that 
way.  Mr.  Mears,  who  buried  his  mother  and  sisters  at  Green- 
mount,  told  me  that  Edwin  Booth  had  an  engagement  at 
Holliday  Street  Theatre  on  the  day  of  his  mother's  and  also 
the  day  of  his  sister  Rosalie's  burials,  but  he  is  quoted  as  saying: 
"I  have  been  on  guard,  on  the  lookout  for  disasters — for  which, 
when  they  come,  I  am  prepared.  Therefore,  I  have  seemed,  to 
those  who  do  not  really  know  me,  callous  to  the  many  blows 
that  have  been  dealt  me." 

As  I  stood  by  Edwin  Booth's  grave  where  a  group  of  his 
friends  had  stood  on  that  June  evening  of  1893,  I  recalled 
T.  B.  Aldrich's  beautiful  description  of  the  scene :  "There  in 
the  tender  afterglow  two  or  three  hundred  men  and  women 
stood  silent,  with  bowed  heads.  A  single  bird,  in  a  nest  hidden 
somewhere  nearby,  twittered  from  time  to  time.  The  soft  June 
air,  blowing  across  the  uplands,  brought  with  it  the  scent  of 
syringa  blossoms  from  the  slope  below.  Overhead  and  among 
the  trees  the  twilight  was  gathering.  'Good-night,  sweet 
Prince!'  I  said,  under  my  breath  ....  and  thus  we  left 
him." 

It  is  wrorth  while  to  have  lived  and  suffered  many  things, 
to  be  so  appreciated,  and  have  such  a  beautiful,  and  beautifully 
true  pen  picture  of  your  life  and  character  written  about  you 
as  appeared  in  one  of  the  New  York  papers  the  morning  after 
his  death,  to  the  memory  of  Edwin  Booth,  by  William  Winter. 
To  read  the  words  and  study  the  face  of  Edwin  Booth  should 
be  an  inspiration : 

"A  blow  that  has  long  been  expected  has  at  last  fallen,  and 
Edwin  Booth  is  dead.  By  this  death  the  community  loses  the 
foremost  and  the  best  of  American  actors,  and  one  of  the  great- 
est tragedians  that  have  ever  lived.     His  friends     .     .     .     have 


32  TUDOR   HALL 


a  great  consolation  when  they  remember  what  a  noble  char- 
acter he  developed,  what  a  beautiful  life  he  lived;  .  .  . 
what  an  ideal  of  purity,  stateliness,  and  grace  he  fulfilled ; 
what  blessings  of  goodness  he  diffused,  and  what  a  stainless 
and  radiant  example  he  has  left.  If  it  is  success  so  to  live  that 
the  world  shall  be  better  for  your  presence,  and  your  fellow- 
creatures  shall  be  strengthened  and  ennobled  by  your  influence, 
Booth  had  a  life  of  splendid  triumph,  and  now  that  it  is  ended 
he  sleeps  in  blessings  and  his  laurel  can  never  fade.  .  .  . 
His  mind  was  noble;  his  spirit  was  grave,  contemplative  and 
intense;  his  temperament,  although  sombre,  was  sweet,  and  his 
feelings  although  reticent,  were  tenderly  sensitive  and  affec- 
tionate. He  was  devoid  of  egotism  and  conceit.  He  was  indeed 
proud  and  resolute,  but  at  the  same  time,  he  was  constitu- 
tionally humble  and  simple.  No  man  was  ever  less  thoughtful 
of  himself  or  more  considerate  of  others.  No  man  was  ever 
more  genuine.  He  took  no  rewards  he  had  not  earned,  and 
no  honor  that  was  not  entirely  his  due.  From  the  first  he 
fixed  his  eyes  upon  the  loftiest  heights.  He  steadily  attempted 
great  things,  and  his  attempt  was  justified  by  his  deed.  In 
singleness  of  purpose,  in  devotion  to  spiritual,  moral  ,and  intel- 
lectual beauty,  in  allegiance  to  art,  in  poise  of  character,  in 
cheerfulness,  patience,  in  benignity  and  sweetness,  in  fidelity  to 
duty,  in  simplicity  and  dignity  of  life,  in  scope  and  height  of 
artistic  purpose,  and  in  worth  of  artistic  achievement,  whether 
as  a  man  or  as  an  actor,  he  was  an  exceptional  person,  an  honor 
to  human  nature  and  a  blessing  to  his  time.  In  thousands  of 
homes  all  over  the  land,  the  feeling  of  the  hour  is  not  simply 
regret  for  the  death  of  a  great  actor,  but  sorrow  for  the  loss 
of  a  personal  friend.  In  thousands  of  hearts,  during  the  gener- 
ation now  closing,  life  has  been  made  fuller  and  richer  by  the 
ministrations  of  his  beautiful  art,  and  for  a  time  it  must  indeed 
seem  lonely  and  bleak,  now  that  he  has  become  only  a  memory. 
"Good  night,  sweet  Prince, 
And  flight  of  angels  sing  thee  to  thy  rest.'* 
The  beautiful  characteristics  of  Edwin  Booth's  nature  here 
shown  are  charmingly  illustrated  in  his  letters  to  his  daugh- 
ter and  friends  in  a  large  and  attractive  volume  published  by 
his  daughter  under  the  title,  "Edwin  Booth." 


John  Wilkes  Booth 

And  now  that  I  come  to  the  life  of  that  son  who  caused  his 
family  such  grief  and  shame,  I  hesitate  how  to  begin.  How  to 
have  my  readers  have  pity  for  the  misguided  boy,  whose  unbal- 
anced mind  made  him  conceive  that  he  was  another  Brutus 
avenging  the  wrong  of  the  South.  He  was  the  handsome,  dar- 
ing, good-hearted  boy,  always  welcomed  among  his  friends  here, 
— most  welcome  at  all  times.  Full  of  reckless  but  harmless 
pranks,  a  little  wild  and  dissipated  as  he  grew  older,  but  never 
cruel  or  ungentlemanly,  in  his  wildest  moods.  He  once  made 
a  bet  that  he  would  go  sleighing  in  July,  and  put  a  pair  of 
horses  to  the  sleigh  and  drove  to  Bel  Air.  It  did  not  injury 
the  horses,  but  when  he  got  home  there  was  no  iron  on  the 
sleigh  runners.  I  was  a  small  child  and  do  not  remember  to 
have  heard  the  name  of  Booth  until  that  day  when  the  news 
of  the  assassination  came.  It  came  to  us  here  a  double  shock 
of  horror  and  consternation.  I  can  remember  well  how  it 
affected  my  father — his  grief  and  indignation,  and  with  it  the 
incredible  report  that  one  he  knew  so  well  had  committed  the 
horrible  deed. 

I  remember  one  who  frequently  visited  our  house  who  must 
have  loved  him  well,  whose  grief  at  hearing  him  execrated  on 
all  sides,  where  he  had  been  loved  and  welcomed,  was  extreme. 
I  remember  seeing  her  when  she  went  home  (she  had  taken  me 
with  her  to  spend  the  night),  take  a  photograph  from  the 
mantel  in  her  room,  and  kiss  it  heart-brokenly,  and  child  though 
I  was,  I  knew  that  she  did  not  condone  the  crime,  and  the 
scene  was  to  me  something  too  sacred  to  mention,  as  a  child 
might  have  done. 

Naturally,  nowhere  could  it  have  aroused  deeper  and  more 
varied  feeling  than  here  in  his  boyhood  home.  That  is  about 
all  I  remember  associated  with  the  war,  except  that  in  our 
prayers  at  night  we  asked  that  our  father  might  not  have  to 
go,  and  that  an  uncle,  whose  home  was  in  Indiana,  might 
return  safely  from  the  war.  That  uncle  had  been  away  from 
his   family   for   three   years,   and   his  wife   wrote   to   Lincoln, 


Iohn  Wilkes  Booth 


TUDOR   HALL  35 


asking  that  he  might  get  home  to  see  her  and  the  little  children, 
and  very  shortly,  in  answer  to  her  petition,  he  was  given  a 
three  months'  furlough. 

My  chief  object  in  writing  this  paper  is  to  refute  by  positive 
evidence  the  many  sensational  stories  that  come  up  from  time  to 
time  of  John  Wilkes  Booth's  escape,  and  his  having  been  seen 
in  different  parts  of  the  country.  Naturally  these  stories  come 
to  me.  Only  a  short  time  ago  a  visitor  to  the  place  affirmed  to 
one  of  my  household  (I  did  not  meet  the  man)  that  a  niece  of 
John  Wilkes  Booth  had  taken  oath  that  her  uncle  lived,  and 
she  had  known  him  long  after  the  war.  How  improbable ! 
And  a  brother  of  mine,  stopping  in  Memphis  several  years  ago, 
found  two  men  exhibiting  what  they  claimed  was  the  body  of 
John  Wilkes  Booth,  recently  deceased,  and  crowds  of  people 
were  paying  to  see  him.     So  credulous  is  the  multitude ! 

The  old  lady  before  mentioned,  that  close  friend  of  the 
family,  Mrs.  Rogers,  on  several  occasions  told  me  of  how  Rosa 
Booth  wrote  to  her  that  the  body  of  her  brother  John  Wilkes 
was  to  be  at  the  undertakers  in  Baltimore,  sending  her  at  the 
same  time  some  token  to  put  in  his  coffin,  and  requesting  her  to 
take  a  lock  of  hair  from  his  head  for  her.  Mrs.  Rogers,  who 
had  known  him  well  from  childhood,  assured  me,  in  contradic- 
tion to  stories  so  often  then  afloat,  that  the  body  was  perfectly 
recognizable,  and  if  in  no  other  way,  she  would  have  identi- 
fied him  by  a  scar  on  his  head,  the  result  of  a  wound  received 
when  a  boy,  his  mother  sending  for  her,  she  had  dressed  and 
bound  up  the  wound. 

I  came  into  possession  sometime  since  of  a  little  book  pub- 
lished over  thirty  years  ago,  written  by  a  man  named  Thomas 
A.  Jones,  which  gives  a  most  vivid  account  of  those  days  when 
John  Wilkes  Booth  was  making  his  painful  journey  toward 
Virginia.  If  Mr.  Jones  is  still  living,  I  would  like  to  ask  his 
permission  to  quote  from  his  story  written  thirty  years  after, 
of  his  part  in  that  undertaking,  which  put  his  own  life  in 
jeopardy.  But  I  am  sure  he  would  not  object  to  my  quoting 
from  the  story  of  the  part  he  took  in  those  stirring  times. 

Jones  was  a  farmer,  living  about  sixty  miles  below  Wash- 
ington. He  worked  zealously  for  the  Confederate  cause,  and 
carried  passengers  across  the  Potomac  into  Virginia.    In  Sep- 


36  TUDOR  HALL 


tember,  '61,  he  was  arrested  on  his  return  from  one  of  these 
trips  to  Richmond,  sent  to  Washington,  and  for  six  months 
held  a  prisoner  at  the  Old  Capitol  prison.  Several  of  his  neigh- 
bors were  also  imprisoned  at  the  same  time.  Soon  after  his 
return  home  he  says,  "my  dear  wife,  whose  health  had  been 
broken  through  work  and  care  during  my  absence,  was  taken 
from  me.  A  bereaved  and  saddened  man,  I  resumed  my  occupa- 
tion of  farming  and  fishing."  Later  he  became  one  of  the 
agents  for  getting  mail  through  from  the  United  States  and 
Canada  to  Richmond,  "a  position  that  required  great  caution." 
Having  lost  much  in  the  Confederate  cause,  he  gave  up  his 
farm,  and  took  a  smaller  one,  two  miles  farther  north  and  a 
mile  from  the  Potomac  River. 

Jones  mentions  having  heard  in  December,  '64,  of  "plans 
on  foot  to  kidnap  the  President,"  the  idea  of  the  conspirators 
being  to  hold  him  as  hostage  while  they  dictated  terms  to  the 
North.  His  first  knowledge  of  the  assassination  was  on  the 
following  evening,  when  on  his  way  to  his  former  home  he  met 
two  Federal  soldiers,  who  asked  him  if  he  had  heard  the  news 
and  then  said,  "our  President  was  shot  last  night,  and  the 
men  who  did  it  came  this  way."  The  next  morning,  Easter 
Sunday,  his  adopted  brother  Samuel  Cox  sent  for  him,  and 
feeling  that  it  was  on  account  of  some  important  matter,  he 
saddled  his  horse  and  went  at  once.  He  was  told  of  the  two 
fugitives  who  had  come  to  Cox's  door  that  morning  at  four 
o'clock,  guided  by  a  colored  man  of  the  neighborhood.  How 
one  had  taken  him  apart,  and  telling  him  who  he  was,  shown 
him  the  initials  J.  W.  B.  in  India  ink  upon  his  arm,  thrown 
himself  upon  his  mercy,  and  begged  him  to  find  a  way  to  get 
them  across  the  river.  He  finished  by  saying,  "Tom,  you  must 
get  them  across." 

Booth  with  his  companion  on  the  night  of  the  assassination 
had  ridden,  as  he  mentions  in  his  diary,  sixty  miles  'with  the 
bone  of  my  leg  tearing  the  flesh  at  every  jump."  They  reached 
Dr.  Mudd's  house  about  4  o'clock  Saturday  morning,  and  the 
doctor  answered  their  call,  helped  the  crippled  man  upstairs 
with  the  assistance  of  his  companion,  and  set  the  broken  leg. 
Dr.  Mudd  had  met  Booth  twice  in  the  previous  year  but  did  not 
recognize  him  in  disguise  and  did  not  hear  of  the  assassination 


TUDOR  HALL  37 


of  the  President  until  he  rode  in  Bryantown  that  evening. 
When  he  returned  the  strangers  were  gone.  The  displacement 
of  a  false  beard  as  they  were  leaving  aroused  Mrs.  Mudd's 
suspicions  and  the  next  day  at  church  Dr.  Mudd  sent  the 
authorities  an  account  of  his  visitors.  It  was  from  Dr.  Mudd's 
that  Booth  and  Herold  arrived,  making  their  appearance  at 
Samuel  Cox's  Sunday  morning. 

I  quote  from  Jones:  "Reader,  it  will  scarcely  surprise  you 
that  I  was  much  disturbed  by  Cox's  disclosure.  In  the  cause 
of  the  Confederacy  I  was  willing  to  risk  my  life,  as  I  had  often 
done.  But  the  war  was  over.  The  cause  which  I  loved  and 
for  which  I  had  labored  was  lost.  Nothing  now  could  raise 
from  the  dust  the  trailing  Stars  and  Bars.  I  knew  that  to  assist 
in  any  way  the  assassin  of  Mr.  Lincoln  would  be  to  put  my  life 
in  jeopardy.  I  knew  that  the  whole  of  Southern  Maryland 
would  soon  be — nay,  was  even  then, — swarming  with  soldiers 
and  detectives,  like  bloodhounds  on  the  trail,  eager  to  avenge 
the  murder  of  their  beloved  President  and  reap  their  reward. 
I  hesitated  for  a  moment  as  I  weighed  these  matters,  I  was 
aroused  by  Cox's  voice,  'Tom,  can't  you  put  these  men  across?' 
I  replied,  I  will  see  what  I  can  do.  I  must  see  these  men  ; 
where  are  they?" 

Jones,  after  being  directed  where  to  find  the  fugitives,  in  a 
piece  of  thick  pine  woods  a  mile  away,  and  the  signal  to  give 
on  his  approach,  left  Cox  and  rode  to  the  place  indicated.  On 
giving  the  signal  agreed  upon,  "a  young  man — he  looked 
scarcely  more  than  a  boy — came  cautiously  out  of  the  thicket 
and  stood  before  me."  He  led  the  way  about  thirty  yards  into 
the  thick  undergrowth  to  where  his  companion  was  lying. 
"This  friend  comes  from  Captain  Cox,"  he  said,  and  that  was 
my  introduction  to  John  Wilkes  Booth. 

"He  was  lying  on  the  ground  with  his  head  supported  on 
his  hand;  his  carbine,  pistols  and  knife  were  close  beside  him. 
A  blanket  was  drawn  partly  over  him,  his  slouch  hat  and  crutch 
lying  by  him.  Though  he  was  exceedingly  pale  and  his  features 
bore  the  evident  traces  of  suffering,  I  have  seldom,  if  ever, 
seen  a  more  strikingly  handsome  man.  He  wore  a  mustache, 
and  his  beard  had  been  trimmed  two  or  three  days  before.  His 
voice  was  pleasant,  and  though  he  seemed  to  be  suffering  intense 


38  TUDOR   HALL 


pain  from  his  broken  leg,  his  manner  was  courteous  and  polite. 
No  sooner  had  I  seen  him  in  his  helpless  and  suffering  condition 
than  I  gave  my  whole  mind  to  the  problem  of  how  to  get  him 
across  the  river.  Murderer  though  I  knew  him  to  be,  his  con- 
dition so  enlisted  my  sympathy  in  his  behalf  that  my  horror  of 
his  deed  was  almost  forgotten  in  my  compassion  for  the  man." 

After  telling  Herold  of  a  spring  nearby,  Jones  promised 
to  provide  food  for  them  every  day  and  bring  newspapers,  and 
get  him  across  the  river  as  soon  as  it  would  be  less  risky.  Booth 
told  Jones  what  he  had  done,  and  that  he  would  never  be 
taken  alive,  and  complained  that  he  was  condemned  for  doing 
that  for  which  Brutus  had  been  commended.  Jones  warned 
the  young  man  to  get  rid  of  the  horses,  and  as  they  were  never 
found,  it  is  supposed  he  shot  them  where  they  would  sink  into 
a  quagmire  nearby.  Jones'  description  of  the  days  that  followed 
is  so  interesting  that  I  can  scarce  forbear  continuing  to  copy 
his  own  words.  Booth  held  out  his  hand  and  thanked  him,  and 
he  took  him  food  and  newspapers  every  day,  and  found  him 
suffering  intensely  with  his  broken  leg,  and  impatient  to  get 
away.  He  lay  within  two  hundred  yards  of  the  road,  and 
Jones  mentions  that  on  one  occasion,  while  he  was  talking  to 
Booth,  they  "heard  the  clamping  of  sabres  and  tramping  of 
horses,  as  a  body  of  cavalry  passed  by." 

Jones'  house  was  visited  several  times,  as  were  all  the  houses 
in  Southern  Maryland,  and  his  colored  man  questioned  and 
threatened.  Through  six  long  days  Booth  lay  hidden,  his  leg 
becoming  terribly  swollen  and  inflamed,  and  pain  almost  un- 
bearable, and  to  add  to  his  discomfort,  "a  cold,  cloudy  damp 
spell  of  weather  such  as  we  often  have  in  the  spring  set  in  and 
continued  through  the  week.  He  never  tired  of  the  newspapers, 
and  there,  surrounded  by  the  sighing  pines,  he  read  the  world's 
just  condemnation  of  his  deed  and  the  price  that  was  offered 
for  his  life."  On  the  sixth  night,  Jones  having  reason  to 
think  there  would  be  no  soldiers  in  the  neighborhood,  succeeded 
in  getting  the  fugitive  down  to  the  river — a  perilous  under- 
taking. Booth  rode  Jones'  horse  with  Herold  walking  beside 
him,  Jones  walking  a  short  distance  ahead  and  giving  signals 
when  he  found  it  safe  to  proceed.  He  stopped  at  his  own 
house  on  the  way  to  get  food  and  Booth  begged,  "can't  I  go  in 


TUDOR  HALL  39 


and  get  some  of  your  hot  coffee,"  and  not  the  least  painful 
thing  of  that  journey  was  to  refuse  him  whose  head  had  not 
been  under  a  roof,  who  had  not  tasted  warm  food,  felt  the  glow 
of  a  fire,  or  seen  a  cheerful  light  for  nearly  a  week. 

They  reached  the  river  bank  where  the  fishing  boat  always 
lay  anchored  at  night,  the  last  part  of  the  journey,  down  the 
steep  bank  to  the  water's  edge,  being  most  painful  to  one  whose 
"every  step  was  torture."  They  "placed  Booth  in  the  stern  of 
the  boat  with  an  oar  to  steer.  Herold  took  the  bow  seat  to  row. 
As  they  were  pushing  off  Booth  offered  Jones  some  money,  but 
he  would  only  take  the  price  of  the  boat,  which  he  knew  he 
would  not  see  again.  Booth  said,  'God  bless  you,  my  dear 
friend,  for  all  you  have  done  for  me.  Good-bye,  old  fellow.' 
I  pushed  the  boat  off,  and  it  glided  out  of  sight  in  the  darkness." 

I  heard  this  narrative,  much  as  Jones  tells  it,  from  a  nephew 
of  his,  who  used  to  hear  his  uncle,  when  an  old  man,  tell  the 
story. 

Townsend,  an  author  of  some  note  during  the  years  follow- 
ing the  war,  and  who  understood  well  the  state  of  men's  minds 
at  that  time,  writes  thus:  "The  whole  land  was  mourning  for 
the  President,  and  the  assassin  found  that  every  Southern  and 
conservative  interest  sought  to  repudiate  him.  .  .  .  The 
world  seemed  to  have  become  ungrateful.  How  had  men  lost 
pride  in  him  who  only  had  treasured  up  and  executed  their 
threats  and  hatred  of  years. 

"Alas!  he  who  is  the  executor  of  base  and  frivolous  popular 
resentments,  only  realizes  for  himself  their  infamy,  being  in- 
stantly deserted  by  his  instigators;  for  no  man  thinks  any  man 
is  wicked  enough  to  wreak  in  cruelty  the  passing  political  inten- 
tions of  the  heart. 

"The  very  papers  which  had  assisted  to  mould  and  arm  his 
mind  for  murder  .  .  .  now  named  him  the  Junius  Brutus 
of  the  age  and  Tarquin  killer — as  a  crazy  man  and  a  drunkard, 
and  what  was  still  worse,  said  he  was  a  circus  jumper  and 
never  could  act." 

The  following  letter  is  taken  from  a  diary  found  on  his 
dead  body  and  still  preserved  in  Washington.  It  is  written  to 
Dr.  Seward,  on  whose  place  he  stopped  on  his  painful  journey. 
The  date,  April  23,  1865.     "I  have  some  little  pride.    I  cannot 


40  TUDOR  HALL 


blame  you  for  your  want  of  hospitality.  You  know  your  own 
affairs.  I  was  sick,  tired,  with  a  broken  limb,  and  in  need  of 
medical  advice.  I  would  not  have  turned  a  dog  from  my  door 
in  such  a  plight.  However,  you  were  kind  enough  to  give  me 
something  to  eat.  .  .  .  The  sauce  to  meat  is  ceremony, 
meeting  were  bare  without  it.  Be  kind  enough  to  accept  the 
enclosed  five  dollars  (though  hard  to  spare)  for  what  I  have 
received." 

They  lost  their  way,  did  not  succeed  in  crossing  the  river 
that  night  and  again  lay  hidden  and  wrote  in  his  diary  on  Fri- 
day: "After  being  hunted  like  a  dog  through  swamps,  woods, 
and  last  night  being  chased  by  gunboats  till  I  was  forced  to 
return  wet,  cold,  and  starving,  with  every  man's  hand  against 
me.  I  am  here  in  despair.  Tonight  I  will  once  more  try  the 
river  with  intent  to  cross."  In  this  second  attempt  they  suc- 
ceeded and  later,  quoting  from  Townsend: 

Quoting  again  from  Townsend: 

"A  negro  was  hired  to  take  them  in  a  cart  to  Port  Con- 
way across  the  weary  hills  and  hollows — a  twelve  mile  jour- 
ney— where  they  arrived  early  Monday  morning  and  some 
disbanded  rebel  cavalry  were  picked  up  by  Herold  and  used 
to  procure  Booth  ferriage  across  the  Rappahannock,  where  he 
crossed  over  into  Caroline  County.  He  rode  on  a  young  officer's 
horse  along  the  skirt  of  old  Fort  Royal  town  and  was  left  at 
a  retired  farm  house  three  miles  south  of  it,  a  wretch  without 
a  plan,  a  friend  or  a  country. 

Speaking  of  his  leap  from  the  box  to  the  stage,  Booth  said  to 
Thomas  Harbin,  in  Virginia,  that  if  he  had  not  been  a  very 
courageous  man  he  would  have  given  up  and  have  been  taken 
right  there,  as  he  for  an  instant  seemed  about  to  faint. 

The  boat  in  which  he  crossed  the  Potomac  was  taken  to 
Washington. 

There  is  something  very  pathetic  in  the  fidelity  to  death  of 
that  young  Herold,  a  druggist's  clerk,  who  being  unknown  in 
the  affair,  could  very  likely  have  made  his  escape.     Poor  boy! 

Mrs.  Thomas  Baily  Aldrich  tells  in  her  charming  book, 
"Crowding  Memories,"  of  being,  with  some  friends  in  Wash- 
ington at  the  time  of  the  trial  of  those  connected  with  the 
crime  and  being  permitted  to  enter  the  court  room,  a  military 


TUDOR  HALL  41 


court,  "in  a  small  room  of  the  old  arsenal.  The  surroundings 
were  in  their  gloomy  and  sombre  shade  well  fitted  for  the  recital 
of  the  grim  tragedy."  She  thus  describes  the  boy:  "Young 
Harold,  a  druggist's  clerk,  who  had  joined  John  Wilkes  Booth 
immediately  after  the  assassination,  and  had  been  with  him 
during  the  ten  days  that  preceded  their  capture,  was  under  the 
fire  of  cross-questioning  as  we  entered  the  court-room.  It  was 
a  very  slight  and  boyish  figure  that  fronted  his  stern  judges, 
the  face  set  and  colorless  like  yellow  wax,  with  freckles  that 
seemed  almost  to  illuminate  the  waxen  surface.  The  brown  eyes 
were  in  expression  as  a  deer  that  has  been  wounded,  the  whole 
body  and  face  vibrant  with  anxious  fear,  like  an  animal  that 
has  been  trapped  and  sees  no  escape.  One  turned  away  from 
it  with  a  feeling  that  no  mortal  had  the  right  to  look  at  a  soul 
so  naked  and  unveiled." 

I  had  not  intended  to  so  long  digress  from  what  I  started 
out  to  prove — the  certain  evidence  of  John  Wilkes  Booth's 
death.  The  rest  of  the  tragic  story  is  well  known,  how  four 
days  later  they  reached  Mr.  Richard  Garrett's,  where  they  spent 
Monday  night.  Tuesday,  feeling  it  unsafe  to  remain  in  the 
house,  they  went  to  the  barn.  This  hiding  place  was  discovered, 
and  a  squad  of  Federal  soldiers  surrounded  the  barn.  Young 
Garrett  was  sent  in  to  Booth,  "with  a  demand  for  his  sur- 
render." Young  Harold  came  out  and  surrendered ;  Booth 
refused ;  the  barn  was  fired,  and  Booth  was  seen  in  the  light 
of  the  flames  and  shot  through  the  head.  "He  was  taken  to 
Garrett's  house,  and  laid  on  the  porch,  where  he  died."  His 
last  words  were:  "Tell  my  mother  I  died  for  my  country  and 
what  I  thought  was  right."  His  identification  was  so  complete, 
his  death  such  an  assured  fact,  why  should  there  ever  have 
arisen  any  doubt  about  it. 

Clara  Morris,  one  of  the  foremost  actresses  for  many  years, 
in  one  of  her  books,  "Life  On  the  Stage,"  published  by  Double- 
day,  Page  &  Co.,  gives  some  recollections  of  John  Wilkes  Booth 
which  are  very  interesting,  from  which  I  copy  the  following 
passages : 

"In  glancing  back  over  two  crowded  and  busy  seasons,  one 
figure  stands  out  with  clearness  and  beauty.  In  his  case  only 
(so  far  as  my  personal  knowledge  goes)   there  was  nothing  de- 


42  TUDOR   HALL 


rogatory  to  dignity  or  to  manhood  in  being  called  beautiful,  for 
he  was  that  bud  of  splendid  promise  blasted  to  the  core,  before 
its  full  triumphant  blooming — known  to  the  world  as  a  madman 
and  an  assassin,  but  to  the  profession  as  'that  unhappy  boy' — 
John  Wilkes  Booth. 

"He  was  so  young,  so  bright,  so  gay,  so  kind. 

"He  was  like  his  great  elder  brother,  rather  lacking  in 
height,  but  his  head  and  throat,  and  the  manner  of  their 
rising  from  his  shoulders,  were  truly  beautiful.  His  coloring 
was  unusual,  the  ivory  pallor  of  his  skin,  the  inky  blackness 
of  his  densely  thick  hair,  the  heavy  lids  of  his  glowing  eyes 
were  all  Oriental,  and  they  gave  a  touch  of  mystery  to  his 
face  when  it  fell  with  gravity — but  there  was  generally  a  flash 
of  white  teeth  behind  his  silky  mustache,  and  a  laugh  in  his 
eyes." 

Clara  Morris  tells  that  the  next  morning  after  a  performance 
in  which  "Mr.  Booth  came — such  a  picture  in  his  Greek  gar- 
ments as  made  even  the  men  exclaim  at  him  ...  I  saw 
Mr.  Booth  come  running  out  of  the  theatre  on  his  way  to  the 
telegraph  office  at  the  corner,  and  right  in  the  middle  of  the 
street,  staring  about  him,  stood  a  child — a  small  roamer  of  the 
stony  street  who  had  evidently  gotten  far  enough  beyond  his 
native  ward  to  arouse  misgivings  as  to  his  personal  safety,  and 
at  the  very  moment  he  stopped  to  consider  matters  Mr.  Booth 
dashed  out  of  the  stage-door  and  added  to  his  bewilderment  by 
capsizing  him  completely.  'O,  good  Lord !  Baby,  are  you 
hurt?'  exclaimed  Mr.  Booth,  pausing  instantly  to  pick  up  the 
dirty,  touseled  small  heap  and  stand  it  on  its  bandy-legs  again. 
'Don't  cry  little  chap,'  and  the  aforesaid  little  chap  not  only 
ceased  to  cry,  but  gave  him  a  damp  and  grimy  smile,  at  which 
the  actor  bent  towards  him  quickly,  but  paused,  took  out  his 
handkerchief  and  first  carefully  wiping  the  dirty  little  nose 
and  mouth,  stooped  and  kissed  him  heartily,  put  some  change 
in  each  freckled  paw,  and  continued  his  run  to  the  telegraph 
office.  .  .  .  He  knew  of  no  witness  to  the  act.  It  required 
the  prompting  of  a  warm  and  tender  heart  to  make  a  young 
and  thoughtful  man  feel  for  and  caress  such  a  dirty,  forlorn 
bit  of  babyhood  as  that. 

"Mr.  Ellsler,  who  had  been  on  terms  of  friendship  with  the 


TUDOR  HALL  43 


elder  Booth,  was  delighted  with  the  promise  of  his  work.  He 
greatly  admired  Edwin's  intellectual  power,  his  artistic  care, 
'but  John,'  he  cried,  'has  more  of  the  old  man's  power  in  one 
performance  than  Edwin  can  show  in  a  year.  He  has  the 
fire,  the  dash,  the  touch  of  strangeness.  He  often  produces  un- 
studied effects.' 

"I  cannot  believe  that  John  Wilkes  Booth  was  'the  leader 
of  a  band  of  bloody  conspirators.' 

"Who  shall  draw  a  line  and  say  where  genius  ends  and  mad- 
ness begins?  There  was  that  touch  of  strangeness.  In  Edwin 
it  was  a  profound  melancholy;  in  John  it  was  an  exaggeration 
of  spirit — almost  a  wildness.  There  was  the  natural  vanity 
of  the  actor,  too,  who  craves  a  dramatic  situation  in  real  life. 
There  was  his  passionate  love  and  sympathy  for  the  South — 
why,  he  was  easier  to  be  played  on  than  a  pipe. 

"Undoubtedly  he  conspired  to  kidnap  the  President,  that 
would  appeal  to  him;  but  after  that  I  truly  believe  he  was  a 
tool,  certainly  he  was  no  leader.  Those  who  led  him  knew 
his  courage,  his  belief  in  Fate,  his  loyalty  to  his  friends,  and 
because  they  knew  these  things,  he  drew  the  lot,  as  it  was 
meant  he  should  from  the  first.  Then,  half  mad,  he  accepted 
the  part  Fate  cast  for  him — committed  the  monstrous  crime,  and 
paid  the  awful  price." 

The  following  letter  written  by  Edwin  Booth  to  a  friend  who 
asked  for  some  information  regarding  his  brother  will  prove 
interesting.  I  copy  it  by  permission  of  his  daughter,  Mrs. 
Edwina  Booth  Grossman : 


TO  NAHUM  CAPEN. 

Windsor  Hotel,  July  28,  1881. 
Dear  Sir: 

I  can  give  you  very  little  information  regarding  my  brother 
John.  I  seldom  saw  him  since  his  early  boyhood  in  Baltimore. 
He  was  a  rattle-pated  fellow,  filled  with  Quixotic  notions. 
While  at  the  farm  in  Maryland  he  would  charge  on  horseback 
through  the  woods,  "shouting"  heroic  speeches  with  a  lance  in 
his  hand,  a  relic  of  the  Mexican  war,  given  to  father  by  some 


44  TUDOR  HALL 


soldier  who  had  served  under  Taylor.  We  regarded  him  as  a 
good-hearted,  harmless,  though  wild-brained  boy,  and  used  to 
laugh  at  his  patriotic  froth  whenever  secession  was  discussed. 
That  he  was  insane  on  that  one  point,  no  one  who  knew  him 
Well  can  doubt.  When  I  told  him  that  I  had  voted  for  Lincoln's 
re-election  he  expressed  deep  regret,  and  declared  his  belief  that 
Lincoln  would  be  made  king  of  America;  and  this,  I  believe, 
drove  him  beyond  the  limits  of  reason.  I  asked  him  once  why 
he  did  not  join  the  Confederate  army.  To  which  he  replied : 
"I  promised  mother  I  would  keep  out  of  the  quarrel,  if  pos- 
sible, and  I  am  sorry  that  I  said  so."  Knowing  my  sentiments, 
he  avoided  me,  rarely  visiting  my  house,  except  to  see  his 
mother,  when  political  topics  were  not  touched  upon,  at  least 
in  my  presence.  He  was  of  a  gentle,  loving  disposition,  very 
boyish  and  full  of  fun, — his  mother's  darling, — and  his  deed 
and  death  crushed  her  spirit.  He  possessed  rare  dramatic 
talent,  and  would  have  made  a  brilliant  mark  in  the  theatrical 
world.  This  is  positively  all  that  I  know  about  him,  having 
left  him  a  mere  schoolboy  when  I  went  with  my  father  to  Cali- 
fornia in  1852.  On  my  return  in  '56  we  were  separated  by 
professional  engagements,  which  kept  him  mostly  in  the  South, 
while  I  was  employed  in  the  Eastern  and  Northern  States. 

I  do  not  believe  any  of  the  wild,  romantic  stories  published 
in  the  papers  concerning  him  but  of  course  he  may  have  been 
engaged  in  political  matters  of  which  I  know  nothing.  All  his 
theatrical  friends  speak  of  him  as  a  poor,  crazy  boy,  and  such 
his  family  think  of  him. 

I  am  sorry  I  can  afford  you  no  further  light  on  the  subject. 

Very  truly  yours, 

Edwin  Booth. 

How  thoroughly  Booth  was  obsessed  with  the  idea  that  his 
cause  was  right,  some  extracts  from  his  diary, — the  private  ex- 
pressions of  a  frenzied  mind, — more  plainly  proves,  than  any 
surmises  from  other  sources  can  do.  They  may  prove  interesting 
to  some  of  my  readers,  as  they  have  to  me,  and  although  I  hesi- 
tate about  inserting  them,  yet  as  I  started  out  to  give  a  little 
information  on  any  part  of  the  subject  that  may  come  up,  and 
as  I  am  often  asked  why  he  committed  the  crime.  I  will  ven- 
ture to  quote  some  passages  that  show  the  distraint,  uncertain 


TUDOR   HALL  45 


mind  of  the  man  through  those  days  of  anxiety,  disappointment 
and  suffering  after  the  deed,  and  while  flying  from  justice. 

On  the  day  of  the  assassination  he  writes,  seemingly  in  dis- 
gust with  some  who  had  failed  to  carry  out  their  part  of  the 
plot:  "Until  today  nothing  was  ever  thought  of  sacrificing 
to  our  country's  wrongs.  For  six  months  we  had  worked  to 
capture.  But  our  cause  being  almost  lost,  something  decisive 
must  be  done.  But  its  failure  was  owing  to  others  who  did 
not  strike  for  their  country  with  a  heart."  Later  he  writes: 
"This  forced  union  is  not  what  I  have  loved.  I  care  not  what 
becomes  of  me.     I  have  no  desire  to  outlive  my  country." 

On  Friday  after  his  first  attempt  and  failure  to  cross  the 
Potomac  he  wrote:  "After  being  hunted  like  a  dog,  with  every 
man's  hand  against  me,  I  am  here  in  despair.  And  why?  For 
doing  what  Brutus  was  honored  for — what  made  Tell  a  hero. 
And  yet  I  for  striking  down  a  greater  tyrant  than  they  ever 
knew,  am  looked  upon  as  a  common  cut-throat.  My  action  was 
purer  than  either  of  their's.  One  hoped  to  be  great.  The 
other  had  not  only  his  country's  but  his  own  wrongs  to  avenge. 
I  hoped  for  no  gain,  I  knew  no  private  wrong.  I  struck  for  my 
country  and  that  alone.  A  country  that  groaned  beneath  this 
tyranny,  and  prayed  for  the  end,  and  yet  now  behold  the  cold 
hand  they  hold  out  to  me. 

"God  pardon  me  if  I  have  done  wrong.  Yet  I  cannot  see 
my  wrong,  except  in  serving  a  degenerate  people.  The  little, 
the  very  little  I  left  behind  to  clear  my  name,  the  Government 
will  not  allow  to  be  printed.  So  ends  all.  For  my  country  I 
have  given  up  all  that  makes  life  sweet  and  holy,  brought  mis- 
ery upon  my  family  and  am  sure  there  is  no  pardon  in  heaven 
for  me  since  man  condemns  me  so. 

"I  have  only  heard  of  what  has  been  done  (except  by  my- 
self) and  it  fills  me  with  horror.  God,  try  to  forgive  me,  and 
bless  my  mother.  Tonight  I  will  once  more  try  the  river  with 
intent  to  cross.  Though  I  have  a  greater  desire  and  almost  a 
mind  to  return  to  Washington  and  in  a  measure  clear  my  name 
— which  I  feel  I  can  do.  I  do  not  repent  the  blow  I  struck. 
I  may  before  my  God,  but  not  to  man. 

"Though  I  am  abandoned  and  with  the  curse  of  Cain  upon 
me,  when,  if  the  world  knew  my  heart,  that  one  blow  would 


46  TUDOR   HALL 


have  made  me  great,  though  I  did  not  desire  greatness.  To- 
night I  try  to  escape  those  blood-hounds  once  more.  Who  can 
see  his  fate  ?   God's  will  be  done. 

"I  have  too  great  a  soul  to  die  like  a  criminal.  O  may  He, 
may  He  spare  me  that  and  let  me  die  bravely." 

And  meanwhile  his  grief-stricken  mother  was  praying:  "O 
God,  it  this  be  true,  let  him  not  live  to  be  hung!  Spare  him, 
spare  us,  spare  the  name  that  dreadful  disgrace." 

Again  from  the  diary:  "I  have  never  hated  or  wronged  any- 
one. This  last  was  not  a  wrong,  unless  God  deems  it  so,  and 
it  is  with  Him  to  damn  or  bless  me. 

"And  for  this  brave  boy  with  me,  who  often  prays  (yes,  be- 
fore and  since)  with  a  true  and  sincere  heart — Was  it  crime 
for  him,  for  him?  If  so,  why  can  he  pray  the  same?  I  do  not 
wish  to  shed  a  drop  of  blood,  but  'I  must  fight  the  course.' 
'Tis  all  that's  left  me." 

I  have  a  fine  almost  life-size  picture  of  John  Wilkes  Booth, 
which  must  have  been  taken  shortly  before  that  time.  It  came 
to  me  by  an  odd  combination  of  circumstances.  I  was  having 
some  building  done,  and  among  the  carpenters  brought  by 
the  contractor  for  the  work  was  a  young  man  I  had  never 
known.  One  day  he  said  to  me,  "They  are  getting  ready  for  a 
sale  at  our  house,  and  among  some  things  that  belonged  to  my 
grandfather  there  is  a  picture  of  John  Wilkes  Booth.  They 
have  taken  it  from  the  frame,  intending  to  sell  the  frame,  as  no 
one  would  want  the  picture.  My  grandfather  and  John  Wilkes 
Booth  were  friends  when  boys.  I  thought  living  on  this  place, 
it  might  be  of  interest  to  you."  (How  often  had  I  heard  my 
father  speak  of  the  young  man's  (Mr.  Bowman's)  grand- 
father, of  John  Wilkes,  Churchville,  and  the  old  tavern,  a 
meeting  place  between  their  homes!)  He  brought  the  picture 
the  next  day.  I  found  it  no  common  crayon,  such  as  is  often 
seen  adorning  (or  disfiguring)  the  walls  of  a  country  house, 
but  a  work  of  art.  I  bought  it,  and  had  it  suitably  framed 
and  hung  by  the  portrait  of  his  brother.  In  this  house,  the 
home  of  his  birth  and  happy  boyhood,  it  seems  not  inappropriate. 

One  cannot  help  gazing  long  at  the  handsome  face  and 
graceful  figure,  the  forehead  reminding  one  of  Edgar  Alan 
Poe,  though  the  face  is  much  handsomer.     As  I  read  from  the 


TUDOR  HALL  47 


little  book  I  mentioned,  Jones'  description  of  him,  1  can  see 
that  handsome,  tragic  face,  as  he  described  his  first  interview 
with  him,  when  he  found  him  lying  hidden  in  a  thicket,  a 
wretched  hunted  fugitive.  Jones  wrote  after  a  lapse  of  more 
than  twenty-five  years,  and  in  his  introduction  says:  "To-day 
I  speak  of  the  murdered  President  as  'great  and  good,'  thirty 
years  ago  I  regarded  him  as  the  enemy  of  my  country.  But 
now  that  the  waves  of  passion,  stirred  up  by  the  storm  of  war 
have  all  subsided  and  passed  away  forever,  and  I  can  form  my 
opinions  in  the  light  of  reason  instead  of  the  blindness  of  preju- 
dice, I  believe  that  Lincoln's  name  justly  belongs  among  the 
first  upon  the  deathless  roll  of  fame.  I  can  now  realize  how 
truly  he  was  beloved  by  the  North,  and  what  a  cruel  shock  his 
death,  coming  when  and  as  it  did,  must  have  been  to  the  mil- 
lions who  held  his  name  in  reverence.  And  with  that  realiza- 
tion comes  the  wonder  that  the  revenge  taken  for  his  murder 
stopped  where  it  did." 


The  Enid  Myth 


The  secrecy  of  the  removal  and  disposition  of  the  body,  a 
wise  precaution  on  the  part  of  the  government,  led  to  the  begin- 
ning of  these  surmises.  The  body  was  placed  in  a  government 
boat  on  the  river,  but  in  the  night  secretly  removed  to  a  small 
boat  and  taken  to  the  old  arsenal  grounds  at  the  Navy  Yard 
in  Washington  and  buried  in  a  plain  gun  box  under  the  old 
Penitentiary,  or  in  the  enclosure  around  it.  It  being  a  secret 
as  to  what  became  of  the  body,  one  report  spread  that  it  had 
been  thrown  into  the  river  from  the  government  boat,  and 
the  other  and  more  lasting  impression  was  that  it  was  not  the 
body  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,  he  having  escaped.  Then  when 
there  appeared  in  different  parts  of  the  South  a  mysterious  per- 
son, accomplished  and  handsome,  with  a  certain  resemblance  to 
Booth,  who  would  recite  poetry,  and  in  confidence  confide  to 
someone  that  he  was  John  Wilkes  Booth,,  and  then  as  if  regret- 
ting the  confidences  he  had  made,  quietly  disappear,  thousands 
of  people  in  the  South  came  to  believe  the  story.  This  man 
spent  his  life  so  far  as  known  in  Texas  and  Oklahoma.  In  the 
latter  state,  at  El  Reno  and  Enid. 

Some  of  my  family  on  a  train  to  California  a  year  ago,  met 
an  old  man  who  stoutly  maintained  that  he  had  seen  him  in  the 
latter  place,  and  nothing  would  convince  him  to  the  contrary. 

The  first  person  at  a  little  town  in  Texas  to  whom  he 
told  his  story — a  young  lawyer,  Firnis  L.  Bates,  so  fully  be- 
lieved him  that  he  spent  years  looking  up  corroborative  evidence 
and  trying  to  find  him  after  his  disappearance.  He  had  made 
his  appearance  about  eight  years  after  the  assassination,  disap- 
peared some  time  later,  and  Mr.  Bates  did  not  come  up  with 
him  until  thirty  years  later  he  read  in  the  newspapers  of  the 
death,  by  his  own  hand,  of  an  old  man,  dissipated  and  poverty- 
stricken,  who  had  represented  himself  to  several  people  as  John 
Wilkes  Booth.  Bates  went  to  Enid  and  identified  the  body  as 
that  of  the  man  he  had  known  as  John  St.  Helen,  or  John 
Wilkes  Booth.  The  body  was  being  carefully  embalmed  with 
the  hope  of  getting  the  reward  promised  by  the  government  at 


TUDOR  HALL  49 


Washington.  After  the  body  had  remained  a  long  time  at  the 
undertaker's  at  Enid  it  was  given  to  Bates,  who  took  it  to 
Memphis.  There  my  brother  saw  it  a  few  years  ago,  displayed 
in  a  public  place,  and  being  viewed  by  crowds  of  people. 

His  assertion  as  to  their  mistake  made  little  impression  on 
the  people  about  him.  Firnis  L.  Bates  was  so  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  the  identity  of  the  man  that  he  published  a  book  (I 
found  a  copy  of  it  a  short  time  ago  in  the  Pratt  Library)  — 
"The  Escape  and  Suicide  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth" — which  had,  I 
imagine,  a  wide  circulation  in  the  South.  There  is  in  the 
November,  1924,  number  of  Harper  s  Magazine,  a  very  inter- 
esting account  given  by  William  G.  Shepherd,  who  was  sent 
in  the  interest  of  the  magazine  to  investigate  what  has  come  to 
be  called  the  "Enid  Myth."  He  made  several  trips  through 
Texas  and  Oklahoma,  met  and  talked  with  many  who  had 
known  the  mysterious  man,  young  or  old,  under  one  name  or 
another,  through  more  than  thirty  years.  There  was  nothing 
to  convince  anyone  of  the  truth  of  his  story.  The  tintype 
photograph  given  by  him  to  Firnis  L.  Bates  is  of  a  man  wearing 
hair  and  mustache  in  the  same  fashion  as  Booth,  but  the  face 
is  broader,  the  side-face  much  shorter  and  the  forehead  espe- 
cially at  the  temple,  not  nearly  so  high.  The  most  convincing 
proof  Mr.  Shepherd  found  as  to  the  falseness  of  his  claim  was 
in  the  handwriting,  which  he  compared  with  that  of  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  being  entirely  different.  Mr.  Shepherd's  descrip- 
tion of  his  being  taken  to  see  the  mummy  at  the  home  of  Firnis 
L.  Bates  is  interesting.     I  give  it  in  his  own  words: 

"It  was  in  the  evening  after  dinner  and  after  the  un- 
suspecting colored  servants  had  retired  to  their  quarters  that 
I  was  escorted  to  the  garage  to  see  the  mummy.  There  was 
the  body  of  an  old  man,  with  bushy  white  hair,  parted  low,  as 
young  Booth  parted  his.  If  this  were  Booth's  body,  then 
Booth  must  have  lived  to  be  sixty-five  years  old.  John  Wilkes 
Booth  had  been  a  handsome  man  and  the  despair  of  lovely 
women.  Could  this  long  gray  hair,  still  curling  and  plenteous, 
have  been  the  adornment  of  that  young  man  who  mastered  the 
stage  of  his  day  with  his  talent  and  his  physical  beauty?  This 
poor  old  man,  unburied  yet  after  twenty-one  years  of  death — 
could  he  have  been  John  Wilkes  Booth?     And  if  he  could, 


50  TUDOR  HALL 


what  a  fate  it  would  be — more  ghastly  than  any  punishing 
judge  could  impose — that  his  body  should  not  be  laid  to  rest." 
One  man  who  had  been  the  mayor  of  Enid  said  to  Mr. 
Shepherd:  "I  never  believed  he  was  Booth.  But  he  could  recite. 
I  can  remember  a  verse  I  used  to  hear  him  repeat,"  and  then 
quoted : 

"Come  not  when  I  am  dead 
To  shed  thy  tears  around  my  head, 
Let  the  winds  weep  and  the  plover  cry, 
But,  thou,  oh  foolish  man,  go  by!" 

(Strange  to  stand  by  that  old  unmourned,  unburied  body  and 
recall  those  lines.) 

But  Mr.  Shepherd  could  not  find  that  he  quoted  Shakespeare. 
"The  people  of  Oklahoma  Territory  did  not  know  much  about 
Shakespeare  in  those  days." 

Mr.  Shepherd,  after  long  journeying  from  place  to  place,  dis- 
covered a  check  written  by  David  E.  George,  the  name  by 
which  the  old  man  was  passing  at  the  time  of  his  death,  and 
he  says:  "Within  two  days  I  held  that  check  in  my  hand  in 
an  attic  room  in  the  War  Department  in  Washington,  where 
are  stored  the  dusty  relics,  archives  and  exhibits  in  the  case  oi 
John  Wilkes  Booth.  With  permission  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment and  in  the  presence  of  two  guards,  I  had  access  to  all  the 
documents  in  the  Booth  case.  In  the  other  hand  I  held  a  little 
book,  covered  with  red  leather  and  lined  with  decaying  silk — 
the  diary  of  John  Wilkes  Booth.  Putting  the  check  and  the 
diary  side  by  side  I  had  my  proof.  Different  hands  wrote 
that  check  and  that  diary — one  the  hand  of  a  man  who  wrote 
laboriously,  a  man  so  unaccustomed  to  check-writing  that  he 
spelled  out  the  number  of  his  check,  'One,'  instead  of  using  the 
numeral,  as  if  this  were  the  first  check  he  had  ever  made  out  in 
all  his  long  life.  The  other  was  the  hand  of  John  Wilkes  Booth. 
That  afternoon  in  the  War  Department  attic  in  Washington 
I  ended  to  my  own  satisfaction  the  Enid  legend." 

But  it  is  not  wonderful  that  this  "myth"  still  survives.  On 
a  visit  to  Washington  a  short  time  ago,  taking  a  conducted  bus 
trip  about  the  city,  our  conductor,  as  we  passed  the  opera  house 
where  the  tragedy  occurred,  ended  his  description  of  the  event 


TUDOR   HALL  51 


by  saying:  "And  John  Wilkes  Booth  died  at  Enid,  Oklahoma, 
in  1914,  and  a  niece  of  his  attested  the  fact  that  he  escaped 
and  lived  and  died  in  the  South." 

I  find  there  was  a  woman,  an  actress,  who  claimed  to  be  the 
daughter  of  Junius  Brutus  the  younger  (the  eldest  son  of  the 
Elder  Booth),  but  as  her  stories  told  at  different  times  do  not 
agree  with  each  other,  and  as  Junius  Brutus  the  younger  was 
supposed  to  have  only  two  children — sons — it  is  strange  she 
should  not  be  remembered  when  she  claims  as  a  child  of  seven 
to  have  met  her  Uncle  John,  before  the  tragedy.  Junius  Brutus 
the  younger  was  well  known  in  Boston  as  an  actor  and  a  man- 
ager of  theatres.     I  think  he  owned  a  theatre  there. 

The  claim  is  perhaps  as  plausible  as  that  of  another  I  recall. 
Mrs.  Rogers  once,  when  showing  me  pictures  of  the  Booths, 
came  across  a  picture  of  a  young  woman,  a  girl  of  about  twelve, 
and  a  boy,  younger.  She  said  some  years  before,  the  woman 
with  her  children  paid  her  a  visit  and  claimed  to  be  the  wife 
of  John  Wilkes  Booth  and  they  his  children.  She  wanted 
Mrs.  Rogers'  advice  about  putting  the  girl  on  the  stage.  Mrs. 
Rogers  did  not  believe  her  story,  and  of  course  advised  her 
against  trying  to  get  the  girl's  interests  advanced  in  that 
capacity,  as  the  daughter  of  Booth.  The  woman  and  children 
disappeared  and  nothing  more  was  heard  of  them. 


U8MKY 

unrvERsirf  of  nirorw 


The  Identification  of 
John  Wilkes  Booth 

I  find  in  the  diary  of  Mr.  George  T.  Strong,  treasurer  of 
the  U.  S.  Sanitary  Commission,  the  following  entries: 

For  "April  22 :  On  Government  mail  boat.  Officers  came 
on  board  and  searched  every  state-room  for  Booth,  but  in  vain.'' 

"April  27 :  City  full  of  reports  about  Booth.  Question  set- 
tled at  last  by  a  surgeon  who  had  seen  Booth  lying  dead." 

In  that  same  journal  Mr.  Strong  makes  a  statement  which 
I  must  correct.  He  mentions  that  Edwin  Booth's  wife  gave 
John  Wilkes  Booth  a  character  so  repulsive  that  the  words  he 
puts  in  her  mouth  are  horrible  to  remember  as  coming  from 
a  source  so  gentle  and  lovely.  The  fact  is  Mrs.  Booth  had 
been  dead  for  more  than  two  years  when  he  claims  to  have 
met  her  after  the   assassination. 

In  the  winter  of  1863  Edwin  Booth  went  to  New  York 
for  an  engagement  of  a  few  weeks,  leaving  his  family  at  their 
home  near  Boston. 

Mrs.  Aldrich,  from  whom  I  have  already  quoted  (from 
"Crowding  Memories")  writes:  "They  (the  Aldrich's  and 
Edwin  Booth)  were  unexpectedly  joined  (in  New  York)  by 
John  Wilkes  Booth  young,  handsome,  gay,  full  of  the  joy  of 
life,  no  tragedy  there;  visibly  embodying  the  line,  'My  bosem's 
lord  sits  lightly  on  his  throne.'  He  had  just  arrived  from 
Boston.  He  said  that  two  days  before  he  left,  Mrs.  Booth  had 
suggested  that,  as  she  would  be  alone  again,  she  should  go  to 
the  city  and  ask  a  friend  to  return  with  her." 

A  little  later  they  heard  of  Mrs.  Booth's  being  ill.  To 
quote  from  Mrs.  Aldrich: 

"There  had  been  a  snow  storm,  a  delay  in  the  horse  car,  and 
standing  on  the  snow  she  had  waited  for  it  and  taken  cold.  On 
her  return  to  the  house  she  said  to  the  maid :  'take  me  upstairs 
and  put  me  to  bed.  I  feel  as  if  I  should  never  be  warm  again.' 
Pneumonia  developed.     She  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  that  his  en- 


TUDOR  HALL  53 


gagement  must  not  be  broken  on  account  of  her  illness.  She 
grew  worse  and  Mr.  Booth  did  not  receive  the  telegrams  sent 
him  in  time  to  reach  her  before  her  death.  Among  those  who 
stood  by  her  grave  was  Mr.  Booth's  mother  and  John  Wilkes 
Booth." 

Learning,  several  years  ago,  that  Mr.  Mears,  who  succeeded 
shortly  after  Booth's  burial  at  Greenmount,  to  the  under- 
taking establishment  of  Weaver,  to  which  place  Booth's  body 
had  been  brought  from  Washington,  I  called  on  Mr.  Mears 
and  learned  from  him  many  interesting  things. 

He  had  charge  of  the  lot  and  burials  at  Old  Baltimore 
Cemetery  and  later  at  Greenmount. 

He  told  me  of  the  removal  of  Junius  Brutus  Booth's  body 
to  Greenmount  and  at  about  the  same  time  the  remains  of 
those  buried  on  the  farm — the  little  children  and  Richard 
Booth,  the  father  of  Junius  Brutus,  who  had  died  in  1839; 
and  what  I  was  most  anxious  to  learn,  about  the  burial  of  John 
Wilkes  when  the  body  was  brought  to  Baltimore.  How  it  was 
identified  as  it  lay  for  a  day  at  the  undertaker's  by  four  men 
who  had  known  Booth  from  boyhood — Colonel  Pegram,  who 
reasserted  a  short  time  before  he  died  that  he  positively 
identified  the  body  as  that  of  John  Wilkes  Booth ;  by 
Magistrate  Hagerty,  who  lived  across  the  street  from  their 
winter  home  on  Exeter  Street;  by  Basil  Moxley,  the  old  door- 
keeper at  Holliday  Street  Theatre,  and  by  one  other  whom  he 
had  forgotten.  I  have  since  learned  that  the  fourth  was  Dr. 
Theodore  Micheau,  who  his  daughter  tells  me  played  here  on 
the  farm  with  the  boys  when  they  were  children,  and  that  it 
was  he  who  threw  an  oyster  shell,  more  in  play  than  anger 
(which  cut  Booth's  head  and  left  the  scar  which  remained  with 
him  to  his  death),  when  he  peeped  in  a  cellar  window  and 
laughed  at  a  play  the  other  boys  were  staging. 

She  told  me  that  as  a  child  he  often  took  her  to  the  cemetery 
and  showed  her  where  Booth  was  buried.  A  minister,  the  Rev. 
Fleming  James,  visiting  in  the  city  at  the  time,  read  the 
funeral  service.  He  was  from  the  North  and  his  congrega- 
tion learning  of  it  would  not  allow  him  to  return.  He  did  not 
know  until  he  reached  the  cemetery  gate  of  whose  funeral  it 
was.     "He  remained  in  Baltimore  and  was  for  some  years  Rec- 


54  TUDOR  HALL 


tor  of  St.  Mark's  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  on  Lombard 
Street." 

From  the  Maryland  Historical  Society  I  procured  a  state- 
ment given  by  Colonel  William  M.  Pegram,  which  confirmed 
all  I  have  learned  from  other  sources.  This  statement  was 
made  in  refutation  of  F.  L.  Bates'  assertions  made  in  his  book, 
"The  Escape  and  Suicide  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,"  which 
Colonel  Pegram  characterizes  as  "the  creation  of  a  mind  either 
utterly  imaginative  or  grossly  misinformed." 

I  quote  from  that  document  his  description  of  Booth  as  he 
lay  in  a  gun  box  for  a  coffin :  "On  the  underside  of  lid,  had 
been  placed  with  a  marking  ink  the  single  word,  'Booth,' 
evidently  to  identify  the  remains  should  they  ever  be  removed. 
Mr.  Wagner  and  I  looked  at  the  body  as  it  lay  dressed  in  the 
suit  of  clothes  in  which  he  had  been  shot.  On  the  right  leg 
was  a  long  cavalry  boot,  coming  up  to  the  knee.  The  left  leg 
was  disjointed  both  at  the  knee  and  ankle,  the  latter  having 
been  broken  when  he  jumped  from  the  box  to  the  stage  of  the 
theatre  after  the  shooting  of  Lincoln. 

"It  will  be  remembered  that  Dr.  Mudd  treated  the  broken 
ankle  without  knowing  who  his  patient  was.  He  cut  the  boot 
from  the  left  leg  and  manufactured  a  shoe  from  the  boot's 
foot,  in  which  we  saw  the  remains  of  the  actual  foot  lying  in 
the  casket.  It  had  become  separated  from  the  bones  of  the  leg, 
and  they  also  separated  at  the  knee.  The  skin  was  still  drawn 
tightly  over  the  grinning  skull,  which  showed  the  splendid 
teeth  for  which  Booth  was  noted,  there  being  only  a  single 
filling,  which  was  identified  by  the  dentist  who  did  the  work. 
The  coal-black  hair  which  rolled  back  from  the  forehead  had 
grown  probably  nearly  a  foot  in  length.  The  family  fully 
identified  the  body." 

Mr.  Wagner,  before  his  death  in  1913,  took  oath  to  the 
accuracy  of  Colonel  Pegram's  statement  as  follows:  "I  have 
read  the  foregoing  statement  by  Mr.  William  M.  Pegram,  with 
regard  to  our  visit  to  Weaver's  (the  undertakers),  in  February, 
1869,  and  there  viewing  the  remains  of  John  Wilkes  Booth, 
just  brought  over  from  Washington,  and  I  hereby  certify  that 
the  said  statement  is  absolutely  correct  in  every  particular. 

(Signed)  Henry  C.  Wagner." 


TUDOR  HALL  55 


To  further  the  truth  of  these  statements  in  the  minds  of 
the  doubtful,  who  claimed  that  the  $100,000  reward  offered 
by  the  President  of  the  United  States  had  not  been  paid,  Mr. 
Pegram  consulted  the  documents  to  which  he  was  referred 
by  the  War  Department  at  Washington,  and  found  that  it  had 
been  paid.  Of  the  $100,000  there  went  to  the  captors  of 
Booth  and  Herold  $75,000;  to  those  capturing  Payne,  $5,000, 
and  Atzerodt,  $20,000.  The  records  give  the  amount  assigned 
to  each.  They  are  to  be  found  in  Vol.  14  of  the  Statutes,  and  on 
pages  341  and  342 — the  rewards  paid  for  the  capture  of  Booth 
and  Herold.  There  were  in  all  fifty-three  persons  shared  in 
the  reward. 

Few  persons  knew  at  the  time  of  Booth's  body  having  been 
given  to  the  family,  its  removal  and  burial  in  Greenmount. 


The  Search  for  Booth  at  Tudor 

Hall  After  the  Assassination 

of  Lincoln 

At  the  time  of  these  terrible  happenings  the  Booth  family 
were  not  at  either  their  country  or  city  home.  They  had  rented 
the  house  on  the  farm  to  a  family  from  Washington.  Mr.  King 
being  a  business  man  in  the  city,  his  family  was  alone  through 
the  week,  except  for  the  servants,  and  no  word  of  what  had 
happened  had  reached  them  in  their  quiet  home.  Many  years 
later  Mrs.  King  visited  the  place  and  sat  with  me  where  I 
am  sitting  now,  and  told  the  story  of  that  night  of  terror. 
She  occupied  the  room  that  had  been  Mrs.  Booth's  bedroom, 
and  on  the  night  of  the  day  after  the  assassination,  while  she 
was  saying  her  prayers,  the  nurse  girl  rushed  into  the  room 
crying,  "the  house  is  surrounded  with  men."  Mrs.  King  step- 
ped out  an  upstairs  casement  window,  on  to  what  we  call  the 
Romeo  and  Juliet  balcony,  and  truly  the  house  was  surrounded 
with  men — soldiers.  She  asked  them  why  they  were  there, 
and  they  informed  her  of  what  had  happened  and  asked  her  to 
open  the  door;  no  one  would  be  molested,  but  they  must  search 
the  house.  They  made  a  thorough  search  of  the  house  and 
outbuildings,  Mrs.  King  in  terror  that  her  little  girls  might 
waken  while  even  their  bed  was  being  examined.  They  searched 
through  the  furniture  and  proded  their  swords  among  the  gar- 
ments packed  away  by  the  Booths.  When  Mrs.  King  informed 
them  that  John  Wilkes  Booth  was  not  here,  she  added,  "but 
gentlemen,  you  would  have  found  him  an  honored  guest,  as 
he  was  always  welcome,"  to  which  the  answer  was,  "Madam, 
it  is  well  for  you  that  we  have  not  found  him  here,  in  which 
case  you  would  have  had  to  go  to  Washington  with  us  tonight." 

A  night  or  two  later  as  the  nurse  was  putting  the  baby 
to  bed,  she  had  another  fright,  and  ran  downstairs  to  say  a  man 
was  on  the  porch  roof  looking  in  the  window.  The  whole 
neighborhood  was  watched  for  days,  and  the  mention  by  some- 
one of  a  cave  on  the  place  set  the  soldiers  looking  for  some- 
thing much  more  likely  to  be  called  a  cave  in  which  one  might 
hide  than  the  dugout  in  the  hillside.      My  father  and  others 


TUDOR  HALL  57 


they  met  were  questioned  about  the  cave,  and  they  would  not 
believe  that  no  one  knew  of  one  being  on  the  place. 

A  few  years  ago  the  woman  who  had  been  Mrs.  King's 
nurse  girl  came  with  two  of  her  pretty  grand-daughters  to 
see  the  place,  and  I  heard  again  the  story  of  those  anxious  days. 
One  can  imagine  how  the  family  were  dreading  that  the  hunted 
fugitive  might  come  to  them.  An  odd  coincidence,  the  next 
week  after  the  visit  of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  a  man  who 
had  been  one  of  the  soldiers  who  searched  the  place  for  Booth, 
came  with  some  strangers  to  show  them  the  place,  and  again  I 
heard  the  story  of  that  search.  Both  have  since  passed  away, 
and  I  know  of  but  few  remaining — one,  an  old,  old  lady, 
who  still  talks  about  when  the  Booths  lived  here;  how  hand- 
some and  gay  was  John  Wilkes,  of  the  poetry  he  once  wrote 
and  sent  her.  She  is  the  only  one  now  to  remember  and  say 
"How  beautiful  was  Asia!  How  handsome  John  Wilkes 
Booth!" 

I  met  a  man  a  few  years  ago,  a  Benedictine  priest,  who  told 
of  having  known  the  colored  man  who  was  in  the  service  of 
Edwin  Booth  at  the  time  of  Lincoln's  assassination,  and  who 
told  him  of  how  he  went  to  Booth's  room  the  next  morning, 
and  informed  him  as  best  he  could  of  what  had  happened  and 
told  him  there  was  a  mob  of  people  in  front  of  the  hotel.  I  do 
not  know  of  the  correctness  of  his  statement,  but  he  said  that 
Edwin  Booth  went  to  the  window  and  talked  to  them,  and  they 
went  away.  But  certainly  the  people  were  so  beside  themselves 
that  he  dared  not  venture  on  the  street  or  go  to  his  stricken 
mother  in  New  York  until  he  could  go  with  less  danger  of 
being  recognized,  at  night. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  visitors  I  have  had  was  William 
J.  Ferguson,  who  was  on  the  stage  that  night  of  April  14th, 
1865.  A  boy  of  fifteen,  he  was  an  understudy,  and  on  that 
night  took  the  part  of  a  young  actor  who  was  sick.  Just  as 
he  with  Laura  Keene  were  making  their  appearance  from  one 
end  of  the  stage,  he  heard  the  shot  and  saw  Booth  leap  from 
the  box  to  the  stage,  hesitate  an  instant  and  run  through  the 
wings.  It  was  Mr.  Ferguson  who  rang  down  the  curtain. 
Mr.  Ferguson  sat  before  the  picture  of  John  Wilkes  Booth, 
whom  he  had  known  well,  as  he  told  me  his  story,  with  a  face 


58  TUDOR  HALL 


so  full  of  life  and  animation,  a  face  so  extremely  interesting,  it 
was  hard  to  realize  his  eighty  years. 

Another  most  interesting  visitor,  and  with  what  varying 
emotions  she  must  have  regarded  the  picture  and  the  birthplace 
of  John  Wilkes  Booth,  was  the  granddaughter  of  Mrs.  Surratt. 

The  Booths  never  came  back  to  the  farm  to  live.  Its  man- 
agement was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  agent  through  whom 
we  later  bought  it  from  Mrs.  Booth,  then  living  at  Long 
Branch.  It  had  been  rented  to  other  tenants,  the  Kings  hav- 
ing gone  back  to  the  city  shortly  after  the  war.  In  1867,  Dr. 
Joseph  Booth  and  Rosalie  came  and  sold  off  the  furniture  and 
took  away  such  things  as  they  wanted  to  keep.  Such  pieces  as  I 
can  find  I  am  gathering  and  bringing  back  to  the  house.  They 
had  what  remained  of  the  bodies  in  the  little  graveyard  removed 
to  their  lot  in  Old  Baltimore  Cemetery.  There  were  only  a  few 
bones  to  be  found,  so  that  their  dust,  for  the  most  part,  still 
rests  here,  covered  with  the  broken  marble  which  had  rested 
on  their  graves.  The  stone  had  been  a  large  flat  marble  slab, 
but  was  broken  to  pieces,  the  story  runs,  by  Junius  Brutus 
Booth  on  an  occasion  when  coming  home  one  night  in  one  of 
those  strange  frenzies,  distracted  over  the  loss  of  a  child  who 
had  recently  died,  he  took  an  axe  and  broke  the  stone  to  pieces. 
I  only  know  that  the  broken  slab  was  there,  and  the  children 
of  the  family  living  on  the  place  at  the  time  the  bodies  were 
removed  had  pieced  it  together  and  read  the  inscription  and 
dates  of  more  than  thirty  years  before.  I  am  sorry  I  do  not 
know  the  exact  spot  where  the  dust  of  the  father  and  little 
children  of  Junius  Brutus  Booth  lies,  covered  with  the  broken 
slab.  One  piece  of  stone  which  was  overlooked  in  the  burial 
I  have  used  these  many  years  as  a  door-stop. 

There  were  some  theatrical  garments  left  in  the  house, 
moth  eaten  perhaps,  but  beautiful.  I  remember  the  dark  rich 
cloth  with  buttons  and  trimmings  of  gold,  a  suit,  dressed  in 
which  a  son  of  the  family  who  were  living  on  the  place  at  the 
time  of  the  sale,  came  to  our  house  on  the  Christmas  Eve  of 
1869,  as  Santa  Claus.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  later  I  saw  the 
beautiful  cloth  of  those  garments  being  torn  into  strips  and 
plaited  into  rugs  by  one  of  the  thrifty  but  not  sentimental  occu- 
pants of  the  Booth  place. 


Their  Burial  Place 

On  the  beautiful  spring  morning  when  I  visited  the  Cemetery, 
I  looked  to  find  some  trace  of  where  John  Wilkes'  grave  might 
be,  either  by  mound  or  depression,  but  if  there  ever  had  been,  all 
trace  was  removed  when  the  lot  was  put  in  its  present  condi- 
tion, under  Edwin  Booths'  direction,  sometime  before  his  death. 
I  learned  later  from  Mr.  Mears  that  he  is  buried  at  the  back 
of  the  large  monument.  The  lot  is  beautifully  kept,  the  green 
turf  like  velvet  and  the  rose  bushes  show  the  attention  of  a 
careful  hand. 

To  me,  knowing  as  much  as  I  do  of  the  lives  of  those  who 
sleep  there,  it  was  in  a  pleasantly  pensive  mood  that  I  passed 
those  quiet  hours,  studying  the  inscriptions  on  the  stones.  The 
lot  is  easily  found.  Going  in  by  the  Greenmount  Avenue 
entrance,  a  turn  to  the  right  on  the  first  avenue  to  the  south, 
and  you  come  in  a  short  time  in  view  of  the  tall  monument  that 
stands  in  the  centre  of  the  lot,  and  on  the  north  side  which 
faces  you  is  the  one  word  "Booth."  The  base  of  the  monument 
is  granite,  six  feet  high,  from  which  rises  a  marble  shaft  about 
seven  feet  in  height.  On  the  south  side  is  inscribed,  "Junius 
Brutus  Booth.  Born  May  first,  1796."  On  the  east  side  of 
the  shaft  is  a  fine  medallion  of  Booth  as  a  young  man,  encircled 
with  a  laurel  wreath,  and  below  on  the  same  side  is  inscribed : 
"In  the  same  grave  with  Junius  Brutus  is  buried  the  body  of 
Mary  Ann  his  wife,  who  survived  him  33  years."  Directly 
below,  in  the  middle  of  the  east  side  of  the  lot  is  their  grave, 
on  which  is  a  flat  dark  stone  on  which  two  white  marble  scrolls 
contain  the  following  inscriptions: 

JUNIUS  BRUTUS  BOOTH 
Born  May  1,  1796 
Died  Nov.  30,  1852 

MARY  ANN  BOOTH 

Wife  of  J.  B. 
Born  June  27,  1802 
Died  Oct.  22,  1885 


60  TUDOR  HALL 


and  on  the  west  side  is  inscribed : 

"To  the  memory  of  the  children  of  J.  B.  and  Mary  Ann  Booth. 
John  Wilkes 
Frederick 
Elizabeth 
Mary  Ann 
Henry  Byron 
Joseph    Adrian." 

Henry  Byron  is  the  dearly  loved  son  who  died  in  London, 
and  is  buried  at  Pentonville,  "a  Chapel  ground  nearby."  Two 
of  these  were  the  children  removed  from  the  "little  graveyard" 
here,  and  one  I  think  died  in  some  foreign  land,  for  we  have 
no  account  of  him. 

The  grave  of  Rosalie  Booth  is  at  the  northeast  corner  of  the 
lot,  and  Mrs.  Clark's  at  the  southeast.  Their  gravestones  are 
alike,  each  a  flat  stone  of  granite  on  which  at  the  head,  lying 
flat  and  diagonally  of  the  stone,  is  a  white  marble  cross  and 
below  on  a  marble  scroll,  on  one  the  words:  "Rosalie  Booth, 
aged  65,  died  1889."  On  the  other:  "In  memory  of  Asia,  wife 
of  John  S.  Clark." 

In  the  life  of  her  father,  the  daughter  says,  after  some  dis- 
cussion about  names  for  a  daughter,  the  father  wrote  to  his 
wife:  "Call  the  little  one  Asia,  in  remembrance  of  that  country 
where  God  first  walked  with  man."  I  think  I  never  heard 
anyone  who  knew  her  mention  her  name  without  adding:  "She 
was  a  beautiful  woman."  She  died  abroad,  in  a  convent,  and 
her  body  was  sent  home  for  burial.  "She  said  she  could  not  live 
in  this  country  on  account  of  the  notoriety  brought  on  the  family 
by  her  brother." 

At  the  northwest  corner  of  the  lot  is  the  grave  of  Dr. 
Joseph  Booth,  1840-1902,  and  in  the  extreme  corner  the  tiny 
grave  of  Edwin,  "son  of  Joseph  and  Cora  Booth."  Joseph's 
wife  is  not  buried  there. 

Junius  Brutus,  the  oldest  son,  lived  and  died  in  Boston.  His 
grave  is  not  in  Greenmount. 

But  most  interesting  of  all  the  graves  to  me  was  that  of 
Richard  Booth,  father  of  Junius  Brutus  Booth.  Lying  in  the 
middle  of  the  north  side  of  the  lot  between  the  graves  of  Rosalie 
and  Joseph  Booth,  is  that  in  memory  of  Richard,  who  was  first 


TUDOR  HALL  61 


buried  here,  in  the  little  graveyard,  then  in  Old  Baltimore,  and 
finally  in  Greenmount.  He  should  be  remembered  as  the  fiery 
young  Republican  who  tried  to  come  to  this  country  to  enlist 
in  our  cause  for  liberty.  Mr.  Mears  had  informed  me  that 
the  inscription  on  the  flat  gray  stone  that  covers  his  grave  was 
translated  at  the  direction  of  Edwin  Booth,  from  an  inscrip- 
tion in  Hebrew  which  was  on  the  stone  brought  from  his  grave 
in  Old  Baltimore  Cemetery.  Mr.  Mears  with  some  difficulty 
had  it  translated  into  Latin,  and  the  first  stone  was  put  into 
the  grave.  (Strange  that  two  stones  with  inscriptions  to  his 
memory  should  be  themselves  entombed!)  But  the  present 
stone  on  his  grave  is  very  interesting.  It  is  an  oblong  gray 
stone,  with  round  corners,  lying  flat  on  the  grave,  and  the 
inscription  below  a  marble  cross  reads: 

"Sacred   to  the  memory  of 

RICHARD  BOOTH 

who   died   Dec.  29,    1839 

aged  76 

Then  the  inscription  in  Latin,  which  as  nearly  as  I  could  deci- 
pher the  worn  letters,  reads: 

"Ex  vita  ita  descedo  tamquam  ex  hospito  in  fervam  Reguum 
in  elytissimi  Ducis  Mica  ire  ad  Astra." 

I  wonder  if  a  second  translation  changes  it  much  from  the 
original  Hebrew: 

"I    give   up   this   life    in   favor  of   the   King.      I    am   going 
unknown  unto  the  stars." 

The  lot  is  large,  and  not  half  filled  with  graves,  and  the 
heads  of  the  graves  are  all  to  the  north. 

I  have  heard  it  asked,  "Why  was  Edwin  Booth  not  buried 
at  Greenmount  with  his  family?"  I  think  the  reason  is  obvious. 
At  the  time  of  his  wife's  death,  near  Boston,  where  they  were 
living,  his  family  dead  had  not  been  moved  to  Greenmount.  It 
Was  natural  he  should  want  his  body  to  rest  beside  her  who 
had  been  "the  love  and  inspiration"  of  his  life.  As  he  wrote 
of  her,  "She  was  to  me  at  once,  wife,  mother,  sister,  guide  and 


62  TUDOR  HALL 


savior.     .     .     .     Two  little  tiny  years,  and  the  bright  future 
is  a  dark  and  dismal  past." 

When  Mr.  Mears  had  finished  putting  the  lot,  inscriptions, 
etc.,  in  order  as  directed  by  Edwin  Booth,  he  went  by  appoint- 
ment to  meet  him  at  the  Continental  Hotel,  Philadelphia.  After 
telling  what  he  had  done,  he  said  hesitatingly,  "Now  all  is  done 
as  you  desired,  but  what  about  John  Wilkes?"  To  which 
Edwin  Booth  threw  up  his  hand  and  said,  "Let  that  rest  as 
it  is." 

Standing  where  Mrs.  Booth  lies  buried  in  the  grave  with  her 
husband  I  thought  of  how  little  we  have  ever  heard  of  her.  Mrs. 
Rogers,  her  friend  and  neighbor,  used  to  speak  fondly^  admir- 
ingly of  her.  She  must  have  been  a  woman  of  fine  character 
and  great  ability  to  care  for  and  almost  alone  rear  her  large 
family;  and  she  had  many  sorrows;  anxiety  as  to  the  condition 
of  her  husband,  his  coming  perhaps  in  one  of  his  strange  moods. 
The  birth  of  ten  children  and  often  alone  with  these  babies. 
The  death  of  two  so  near  together,  with  the  father  absent,  and 
later  the  death  of  her  husband  under  such  painful  circum- 
stances; and  then  when  life  should  have  been  easier,  with  the 
loving  care  of  her  son  Edwin  and  her  devoted  daughter,  Rosalie, 
came  the  crushing  blow  of  her  life  in  the  awful  deed  and 
ignominious  death  of  her  son;  for  quoting  from  Mrs.  Aldrich: 
"John  Wilkes  was  her  idol,  her  youngest  born,  and  whatever 
the  world  might  find  of  him  unlovely  he  was  to  her  a  most 
devoted  son." 

I  recalled  Mrs.  Aldrich's  account  of  those  dreadful  days 
when  the  mother  and  sister  shut  in  from  an  angry  world  waited 
in  agony  and  suspense  and  shame  through  those  ten  awful  days. 
She  says: 

"On  the  morning  after  the  tragedy  we  came  to  the  sombre 
household  within  whose  walls  a  mother  and  sister  sat  stricken 
and  stunned  with  grief,  like  Rachel  of  old  refusing  to  be  com- 
forted. .  .  .  Then  came  the  sound  of  a  postman's  whistle, 
and  with  a  ring  of  the  doorbell  a  letter  was  handed  in  to  Mrs. 
Booth.  It  was  from  John  Wilkes  Booth,  written  in  the  after- 
noon before  the  tragedy.  It  was  an  affectionate  letter,  such  as 
any  mother  would  like  to  receive  from  her  son,  containing  noth- 
ing of  any  particular  moment,  but  ghastly  to  read  now  with  the 


TUDOR   HALL  63 


thought  of  what  the  feelings  of  the  man  must  have  been  who 
held  the  pen  in  writing  it,  knowing  what  overwhelming  sor- 
row the  next  hours  would  bring  and  vaguely  groping,  by  affec- 
tionate words,  to  bring  to  her  whom  he  loved  most,  some  allevi- 
ation, some  ray  of  light  in  the  darkness  in  which  he  was  to 
envelop  her. 

On  the  day  of  his  capture  and  death  Mrs.  Booth  was  called 
to  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Clark,  who  was  alone  and  ill  in  Phila- 
delphia. "On  the  moving  train,  surrounded  by  strangers,  the 
poor  mother  sat  alone  in  her  misery,  while  everyone  about  her, 
unconscious  of  her  presence,  was  reading  and  talking,  with  burn- 
ing indignation,  of  her  son,  the  assassin  of  the  President.  Be- 
fore the  train  had  reached  its  journey's  end,  Mrs.  Booth,  with 
wonderful  fortitude  and  self-restraint,  had  read  the  pitiful  story 
of  her  misguided  boy's  wanderings,  capture  and  death,  and  alone 
in  her  wall  of  silence  read :  'Tell  my  mother  that  I  died  for 
my  country.'  " 

Standing  among  their  graves  I  recalled  a  beautiful  letter 
Edwin  Booth  wrote  to  his  friend,  William  Winter.  I  copy 
it  here  from  "Life  and  Art  of  Edwin  Booth" :  "I  cannot  grieve 
at  death.  It  seems  to  me  the  greatest  boon  the  Almighty  has 
granted  us.  This  life  is  a  temporary  ill,  to  be  soon  cured  by 
that  dear  old  doctor  Death,  who  gives  us  a  life  more  healthful 
and  enduring  than  all  the  physicians,  temporal  or  spiritual, 
can  give.  When  I  last  saw  my  dear  mother  alive  she  had  just 
entered  on  her  eighty-fourth  year,  after  a  battle  of  certainly 
sixty  years  of  sorrow.  Her  face  was  seamed  with  wrinkles,  in 
every  one  of  which  could  be  plainly  seen  the  ravages  of  suffer- 
ing. No  one  ever  loved  his  parent  dearer  than  I ;  and  yet,  for 
years,  I  prayed,  silently,  deeply,  in  my  soul,  for  her  release;  and 
when  it  came,  and  I  was  hastily  summoned  to  her  death-bed,  I 
found  the  weary  old  woman  transformed  into  a  most  beautiful 
object — so  beautiful  that  I  would  not  have  believed  it  to  be 
my  poor  old  mother's  corpse,  had  I  seen  it  by  mere  chance.  The 
natural  grief  that  possessed  me,  from  the  moment  I  was  sum- 
moned until  I  raised  the  cloth  from  her  dear  face,  ceased  at 
once,  and  my  soul  said,  'God  be  thanked!'  And  I  was  happy 
in  her  happiness,  which  the  good  God  revealed  to  me  in  the 


64  TUDOR  HALL 


exquisite  loveliness  of  her  dead  features.  ...  It  is  God's 
sign-manual  of  immortality." 

That  devoted  son,  who  must  have  been  the  pride  and  com- 
fort of  his  mother's  life,  sleeps  far  away  from  her  beside  the 
woman  who  was  the  love  and  inspiration  of  his  life,  but  I  am 
glad  to  know  that  close  to  his  mother's  grave  lies  the  body 
of  her  deluded,  wayward  but  much  loved  son,  John  Wilkes, 
and  that  before  her  death  she  knew  where  he  rested. 

A  stained  glass  full  length  figure  of  Edwin  Booth's  wife, 
Mary  Booth,  with  a  dove  clasped  to  her  bosom  occupies  a  win- 
dow of  a  church  in  New  Port. 

One  sees  the  result  of  Edwin  Booth's  loving  thoughtfulness 
for  his  people  in  the  beautifully  cared  for  resting  place  he  pro- 
vided for  them.  One  child  is  I  think  buried  elsewhere,  and  I 
suppose  the  little  grave  of  the  boy  who  is  buried  at  Pentonville, 
in  "a  chapel  ground  nearby"  has  long  been  neglected,  but 
Edwin's  grave  is  beautifully  kept,  a  shrine  to  which  pilgrimages 
will  long  be  made;  and  near  the  graves  of  our  beloved  poets — 
Longfellow,  Lowell  and  Holmes. 

And  so,  quoting  from  Mrs.  Hemans'  beautiful  poem,  "The 
Graves  of  a  Household" : 

"Their  graves  are  scattered  far  and  wide, 
By  mount,  and  stream  and  sea ; 
And  parted  thus  they  rest,  who  played 
Beneath  the  same  green  tree." 

I  sit  this  spring  morning  looking  out  on  the  grounds  once 
so  familiar  to  those  whose  history  has  somehow  grown  deeply 
into  my  own  life.  I  see  the  old  locust  trees,  the  immense  syca- 
more, whose  branches  would  now  have  met  over  the  old  log 
house,  if  it  were  standing,  those  of  the  cherry  tree.  The  oriole 
has  come;  I  hear  his  joyous  song,  as  he  and  his  mate  flit  back 
and  forth,  choosing  a  place  to  hang  their  nest  on  some  far- 
reaching  branch  of  the  sycamore.  The  robins  have  already  made 
their  nests  ,and  are  hopping  in  pairs  about  the  lawn.  The  wren 
is  singing  wildly,  while  his  mate  finishes  her  nest-making  in  the 
house  that  has  been  her  choice  for  many  years.  And  the  peewit 
is  building  in  her  old  place  over  a  window  on  the  porch.  The 
martins  are  welcoming  each  additional  pair  of  arrivals  to  their 
colony  in  their  cheerful  fashion.     But  they  who  held  this  peace- 


TUDOR   HALL  65 


ful  scene  in  such  fond  remembrance  are  gone,  and  I  shall  be 
glad  if  I  have  done  a  little  to  perpetuate  kind  memories  of 
those  who  in  the  shelter  of  this  quiet  home  played  at  tragedy, 
and  later  went  out  into  the  world  to  experience  it  in  real  life. 
And  may  the  memory  of  the  patriotism  of  Richard  Booth, 
the  world-renowned  genius  of  Junius  Brutus,  his  son,  and  the 
undying  memory  of  Edwin  Booth,  the  brave  in  time  of 
calamity,  the  gentle,  good  and  lofty  soul,  who  dignified  the 
stage  and  is  a  source  of  undying  pride  to  his  native  Maryland, 
cover  with  a  mantle  of  charity  the  memory  of  the  fanatical 
and  misguided  one  who  made  the  nation  mourn. 


I 


ill 


iliil  111 


?iciil{|l|<fi|li*f||il<|i^s|i||l|{fiii|i^ 


!  n  1 1 1 !  e  > !  i    ! 


■  '         ■ 


